School students tackle rollercoaster design

A Sheffield Hallam University product story

Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team Aug 26, 2002

Pupils from Aston Comprehensive School in Rotherham have been riding the rollercoasters at Alton Towers as part of a five-day summer school project.

Nemesis, The Big One, Obilivion - rollercoasters are big business and hundreds of kids have been queuing up for hours this summer at theme parks across the UK, to ride their favourite one.

24 pupils from Aston Comprehensive School in Rotherham joined the tourists at Alton Towers on Monday 19th August as part of a design a theme park ride challenge.

The Alton Towers trip marked the start of a five-day summer school project, which is being partnered by Sheffield Hallam University's School of Engineering.

The week's activities have been organised by Aston Comprehensive, with the aim of giving the fourteen year olds a taste of higher education and promoting careers in science, maths and engineering.

The challenge is to plan and design a theme park ride, and during the week the students will learn all about the factors they will need to consider, such as the physics of the rollercoaster, health and safety and the psychology of fear.

The students visited the University on Thursday 22nd August and Professor Graham Cockerham and John Slater from the School of Engineering were on hand to help the pupils produce a design brief for their ride.

At the university the students will carry out experiments to determine if their design will perform properly, such as stress testing and element analysis.

They will also have to think about the manufacture of their ride, its production costs and examine the constraints and limitations of their designs.

Aston chose Sheffield Hallam to help teach the budding designers because of its established expertise in product design.

The School of Engineering has worked on many consultancy projects involving the design of components for theme park rides.

In the past it has worked in partnership with clients such Ward Engineering and Giro Mining Transport (GMT), a company which was involved in the design of a number of rides at Alton Towers.

During their time at the university, the pupils will learn the basic mechanical engineering principles applied by engineering undergraduates.

For those interested in pursuing a career in design, the School of Engineering has on offer a range of courses, including computer aided engineering and design, engineering design and innovation and mechanical engineering.

John Slater, lecturer in mechanical engineering at the School of Engineering said: "We are delighted to have this opportunity to demonstrate to these pupils that engineering offers some of the most exciting and challenging careers available.

Whilst the students are at the University they'll get a real taste for engineering as a highly skilled profession.

Hopefully, we will show that engineering is satisfying, rewarding and fun - although we engineers tend to keep quiet about the fun part".

The week's activities will end with a design show at Aston Comprehensive School, at 3pm on Friday 23rd August, where the pupils will present their final designs to staff and parents.