Amusement Park Island's Roller Coaster Cliff

This Summer Reading Program challenge will involve building a roller coaster ramp that sends a marble flying as far as possible and landing in a target container (like the Coney Island Cannon Coaster in the early 1900’s). The kids will learn about the Cannon Coaster which was designed to send cars speeding through a cannon and jumping over a gap in the tracks - unfortunately, it crashed so many times during the test runs that it was not allowed to open to the public. Then the kids will build, test, modify, retest, re-modify their coaster, if necessary, and then share with the other tribes. In the process, they will observe potential and kinetic energy as they relate to the marble rolling on a ramp; they will also observe the impact of height and steepness on the velocity/speed of a marble.