roller coasters

It’s the Physics That Makes Roller Coasters So Exciting

If you’re taking advantage of the long holiday weekend to visit your favorite theme park, take a moment to learn a little about the underlying physics of roller coasters, via the latest video from the folks at SciShow. All roller coasters basically involve Newtonian physics 101: inertia, gravity, acceleration, and friction. The higher the train…

Physics & Chemistry Jennifer Ouellette Sep 4

Wearing VR Goggles on Six Flags Rollercoasters Is a Next-Level Vomit Factory

We get it, ok? Virtual reality—it’s all very exciting and cool. Who wouldn’t want to be transported to another world that’s way more awesome than this one? But Samsung, who’s known overdoing it, is now turning popular roller coasters across North America into insane torture machines using Gear VR headsets. That image above are what…

Tech News Darren Orf Mar 3

The Best Parade Float Ever Has a Working, Death-Defying Roller Coaster on It

To help celebrate the annual festival of broken necks, the town of Bassersdorf in Zurich, Switzerland holds a parade featuring some of the most ridiculous floats you’ve ever seen, including one with a working roller coaster that Hollywood stuntmen would pass on riding. This video, posted by Rolf Zemp to YouTube, does have an odd…

Tech News Andrew Liszewski Feb 17

VR Roller Coaster Sounds Awesome—and Pukey

Virtual reality already makes some people woozy. For others, roller coasters are also a motion-sickness nightmare. What happens when you mix two stomach-turning activities? A theme park in the UK is going to find out. Today, Alton Towers, a theme park in Staffordshire, England, announced it would debut a VR experience called Galactica this April.…

Tech News Bryan Lufkin Jan 12

Roller Coaster Tycoon in real life would totally be the craziest thing

I wasted a ridiculous amount of my youth building fictional roller coaster parks on my computer with Roller Coaster Tycoon. It was so fun! Building new rides, dealing with your customers, handling demand, creating park layouts, it all made me want to work for Six Flags. This video from AndrewMFilms imagines a day at a…

Sploid Casey Chan Dec 9

Cedar Point’s Giant New Coaster Will Shatter Ten World Records Next Year

There are lots of coaster parks in the world, but few have dedicated themselves to pushing the limits of thrill rides like Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio, has. And when it opens next summer, its new Valravn Birdseye coaster will officially break ten world records in one fell swoop. Though the park has a relatively…

Tech News Andrew Liszewski Sep 14

Six Flags’ New 4D Batman Coaster Looks Like a Super Fun Vomit Factory

Guess what’s finally built and undergoing extensive testing at Six Flags’ Fiesta Texas amusement park in San Antonio? The park’s brand new Batman coaster that was teased last year with 4D thrills courtesy of seats that are free to rotate 360-degrees during your vomit-filled ride. Last year we were only treated to animations of what…

Tech News Andrew Liszewski May 15

Crazy winds throw window cleaners for a scary swing ride on 91st floor

Dear Lord. Cleaning the windows of skyscrapers is already a scary enough job but cleaning windows of the 91st floor of the 1600-foot tall Shanghai World Financial Center while the wind violently throws around the scaffolding like some unhinged, unbuckled roller coaster swing? That is absolutely pants laundering terrifying. The workers were thankfully rescued but…

Sploid Casey Chan Apr 3

This human hamster wheel is like its own personal roller coaster

It must be terribly dizzying to be on the never ending cycle of a human hamster wheel but boy does this guy make it look fun. In fact, it looks like he’s moving inside his very own roller coaster. Or at the very least, it looks like he has combined every fun thing on a…

Sploid Casey Chan Mar 24

This jet-powered boat is going impossibly fast

Yowza. I think if I hopped on this jet-powered boat in New Zealand my hair would fall out, my neck would get stretched out and my face would be permanently smushed in. It goes fast. Like a runaway roller coaster that’s off its track fast. I mean, look how quickly it zips in and around…

Sploid Casey Chan Mar 17

Seeing a GoPro video of a roller coaster might be scarier than riding it

Somehow, it’s almost scarier to watch a GoPro video of a roller coaster than to ride the roller coaster itself in real life. I don’t know why that works but it’s like you get none of the thrills and all of the fear when you see the first person point of view, it’s just terrifying…

Sploid Casey Chan Feb 3

MIT Students Build Handmade Wooden Roller Coaster For Incoming Freshmen

The coaster was designed by three mechanical engineering juniors and built in the span of a week by the incoming freshmen who would ride its wooden rails. In early designs, the coaster even had an internal loop. Unfortunately, MIT’s Environment Health and Safety department said “no upside-down people. Period.” Even without the loop, the resulting…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez Dec 27

Riding a motorcycle on a roller coaster is pure crazy

A lot of people already think that riding a motorcycle is dangerous. A lot of people find riding a roller coaster thrilling and scary. So why not combine the both and use a motorcycle to ride a roller coaster track? Mixing all that scariness and dangerousness and ridiculous thrills together gets you pure crazy. Red…

Sploid Casey Chan Dec 8

The first demo video of the world’s tallest roller coaster is terrifying

The world’s tallest roller coaster won’t even be made until 2017 and this is just a demo video of what the roller coaster is going to feel like but I’m already scared. Skyscraper at Skyplex in Orlando will be the tallest roller coaster in the world at over 500 feet tall and you ride the…

Sploid Casey Chan Nov 18

New Batman Roller Coaster Is Clearly The Joker’s Diabolical Vomit Trap

Six Flags theme parks have had plenty of Batman coasters, but the new one opening in San Antonio, Texas, in summer of 2015 claims to be “4D.” More importantly, as this promotional video for the ride clearly indicates, this thing is obviously one of the Joker’s nefarious plans, designed to induce mass vomiting. Ignoring the…

io9 Rob Bricken Sep 2

This New 4D Batman Theme Park Ride Looks Like a Giant Nope-Coaster

Growing up outside of St. Louis, there was a Six Flags only a forty-minute drive away. You could look right off the highway and see the sprawling parking lot, the giant Ferris wheel, and the twisted metal of all the roller coasters. The most imposing snake-like construction was Batman: The Ride. For me and my…

Tech News Darren Orf Aug 31

Amusement park throws people from 100-foot tower with nothing but a net

Here’s an insanely scary ride for those who need to feel like they’re close to dying in order to feel like they’re living: the Sky Tower in Tivoli Friheden in Denmark. They hang you from a safety rope—then they cut it off and you free fall at 55 mph down onto a net 100 foot…

Sploid Casey Chan Jul 21

Coney Island’s Newest Roller Coaster Is Narrower Than Most Apartments

This week marks the opening of the Thunderbolt, a modern roller coaster looping and corkscrewing through historic Coney Island in Brooklyn. The coaster is a towering orange lasso with 2200 feet of track, squeezed into an unbelievably narrow space. Here’s our up close and personal look at NYC’s latest thrill ride. The Thunderbolt name is…

Tech News Michael Hession Jun 11

The World’s Tallest Roller Coaster Will Tower 55 Stories Above the Earth

Coaster enthusiasts are always on the hunt for their next big thrill, and come 2016 they may be drawn back to Orlando. That’s when the Skyplex complex is set to open, featuring the world’s tallest roller coaster wrapped around its 570-foot tall tower. The Polercoaster—as it will be known—is part of a larger 495,000 square…

Tech News Andrew Liszewski Jun 9

Why Roller Coaster Loops Are Never Circular

Many extreme roller coaster these days have vertical loops. Have you noticed that these loops are never circular? Why is this? They all, also, seem to have the same similar ‘inverted teardrop’ appearance. Why is this? Clearly there is the same physics and mathematics involved in their designs. Let’s take a look and see if…

Physics & Chemistry Nick Berry - Data Genetics Mar 24

It’s the Physics That Makes Roller Coasters So Exciting

Wearing VR Goggles on Six Flags Rollercoasters Is a Next-Level Vomit Factory

The Best Parade Float Ever Has a Working, Death-Defying Roller Coaster on It

VR Roller Coaster Sounds Awesome—and Pukey

Roller Coaster Tycoon in real life would totally be the craziest thing

Cedar Point’s Giant New Coaster Will Shatter Ten World Records Next Year

Six Flags’ New 4D Batman Coaster Looks Like a Super Fun Vomit Factory

Crazy winds throw window cleaners for a scary swing ride on 91st floor

This human hamster wheel is like its own personal roller coaster

This jet-powered boat is going impossibly fast

Seeing a GoPro video of a roller coaster might be scarier than riding it

MIT Students Build Handmade Wooden Roller Coaster For Incoming Freshmen

Riding a motorcycle on a roller coaster is pure crazy

The first demo video of the world’s tallest roller coaster is terrifying

New Batman Roller Coaster Is Clearly The Joker’s Diabolical Vomit Trap

This New 4D Batman Theme Park Ride Looks Like a Giant Nope-Coaster

Amusement park throws people from 100-foot tower with nothing but a net

Coney Island’s Newest Roller Coaster Is Narrower Than Most Apartments

The World’s Tallest Roller Coaster Will Tower 55 Stories Above the Earth

Why Roller Coaster Loops Are Never Circular

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