TSO-E Day 2: Tinkering Park Amuses

Following in the spirit of LaMarcus Adna Thompson, the “Father of the American Roller Coaster” and inventor of the railway switchback that would make Coney Island an amusement park epicenter in 1884, Tinkerers came together Monday to identify their ideas for a Tinkerers amusement park at UC Elkus Ranch.

Junior Tinkerer, Daniel, listens to his teammate, Joshua’s, ideas during the first collaborative brainstorming session of the upcoming week.

First, Tinkerers pulled out their pencils and markers, listing and drawing concepts flowing from their imaginations and previous experiences at today’s theme parks. A ramp ride with a cart, roller coaster, bungee canyon, relaxation spa tree house, Ferris wheel, merry-go-round, zip line, drop tower, Plinko game and more were among many ideas Tinkerers could envision for their own amusement park.

“Maybe we can do the tree house or the zip line,” junior Tinkerer, Daniel, suggests.

“The ramp ride seems like a roller coaster, so maybe we can use it as plan B,” Joshua, a junior Tinkerer adds.

“I would like to work on the tree house,” comments junior Tinkerer, Yuval.

Junior Tinkerers, Scarlett and Ella, begin assembling structural supports for the merry-go-round.

Ultimately, the junior teams chose a merry-go-round, Plinko, zip line, and a landing platform for the zip line. The senior teams chose to divide a roller coaster track into three parts that will eventually connect into a loop snaking along a varied terrain.

With the brainstorming phase complete for the morning, all Tinkerers set out to begin their builds, weighing such constraints as time, materials and safety. The junior team, having such different builds, worked autonomously. In contrast, each senior team built three prototypes, later regrouped to trade ideas and concerns of each model, and walked away with parts from each team’s build to construct one type of rail for the entire loop.

One of three roller coaster rail prototypes is shown above.

“We literally have to take this all apart,” senior Tinkerer, Charlotte, said somewhat disappointed but understanding of the iterative process. “Yeah, we made a lot of problems.”

Despite the seeming setback, senior Tinkerer, Zachary, worked to build a near perfect multiple wheel block, and his teammate was excited by the progress.

As Charlotte worked to deconstruct her team’s prototype she cheered, “We made something that rolls!”

Senior Tinkerer, Zachary, works to perfect a multiple wheel block that will be used on the looping roller coaster.

Check out the photo slideshow of our Tinkerers’ first day of collaborative building.