While cliché, the metaphor of a roller coaster sums up my relationship to this project fairly well. In an incredibly stressful time of my life, with college applications omnipresent and academic and personal responsibilities still time-consuming, dedicating consistent work to this project became a challenge in itself. I initially set out to create a rideable backyard roller coaster. By March, it became apparent that this goal was unrealistic for a number of reasons. Primarily, I am not a particularly “handy” person, nor do I have much experience building and constructing things. At the start of the year, I believed that having something physical to do with my hands and body could be fulfilling and grounding in a turbulent second semester, where it feels like a race against oneself to remain engaged in high school academics. This proved to be only partially true. Indeed, the work itself was enjoyable and grounding, as I had expected, but the designing, planning, purchasing, and general logistical organizing proved to be more demanding than I had the bandwidth to handle.
I chose to center my project on roller coasters because they are something that I love. My fondness for roller coasters grew from what was once a crippling aversion to anything that pushed me out of my comfort zone, and for a young kid, roller coasters certainly fit that description. However, beyond my love for the rides themselves, I decided to pick a topic that would allow me to spend some more time in the STEM world before I go to college and begin studying political theory, my current interest. Throughout most of my life, up until around 10th grade, my interest in, and skill at, mathematics has been what I imagined I would spend the rest of my life doing. Although my primary interest has shifted to politics, my love for math has not diminished. It was for this very reason that I decided to take on a STEM-focused senior project; it may be my last foray into these topics. I don’t think that this decision was inherently wrong, but I wish I had recognized that it would be a struggle to remain honed in on a project less connected to topics I wrestle with in my free time. I spend much of my free time researching the various elections that occur around the world, and electoral politics has become my current fascination. Perhaps, it would have been wiser to spend my year focusing on a project related to that topic, though it is equally possible that I would become similarly uninspired by the process.
One of the most important lessons that this project has taught me is the need to stop obsessing over the planning and brainstorming stage and, instead, start creating. If I had traveled to a hardware store earlier in the year and started physical construction then, I believe that I could have a larger product. In reality, I agonized over what I would be building and delayed all of the construction to the end of the project. I wasted more time thinking about how much I needed to scale down this project instead of beginning when I had the first opportunity. Additionally, my communication with my outside mentor was less than ideal. I did not use him as much as I should have, and he was away for much of March and April. Instead, I consulted my neighbor and family friend, Rick, who provided me with many of the tools I needed and provided me with another pair of hands.
Furthermore, I am glad that I was able to pivot from purely creating the model to the educational path that I took the project to in the end. Prepping five classes without a template or any prior teaching experience proved to be a challenge that I was able to set my mind to over the final months of the year. I am incredibly grateful to Mr. Almeida for the opportunity to take over five of his classes, as it provided me with a rare opportunity to teach to a captive audience of middle school students. In my short time teaching, I felt as if I was able to peer into a microcosm of the incredibly dynamic and challenging world of teaching middle school students. It gave me a greater appreciation for the work that teachers put into preparing their classes, the woes of managing a class of 20 students, and striking the right balance between creating assignments that are not boring while still being achievable for middle school students. For most of the classes, I actually went in thinking that I was under prepared, but ended up with a substantial amount of unused material. This was where I felt the balancing act most acutely. I could provide the students with the “trick” to solve problems that were mechanically simple but conceptually difficult, or I could try to let them reason through it. In my first lessons, I expected students to figure out every problem from scratch. As I learned how the class functioned and how the group learned collectively, I adapted to explaining concepts in more granular step-by-step ways that made concepts feel more manageable. Additionally, I saw the fulfilling aspects of teaching. Watching kids reach a conclusion that I was maneuvering them towards was rewarding in ways that I didn’t expect. Roller coasters are a topic that, of course, is going to make middle schoolers more interested in physics topics, but, even so, seeing them think their way through problems and connect the dots was unquestionably gratifying.
Our classes then concluded with the trip to Six Flags New England. The trip, while marred with some unforeseen setbacks, was a success as well. I had planned problems to do on four rides at the park: Quantum Accelerator (launch coaster), Superman the Ride (typical roller coaster), Scream (drop-tower), and the New England SkyScreamer (swings). We were unable to ride Scream and the SkyScreamer because the former had an incredibly long line thanks to its particularly sluggish operations and reduced capacity, and the latter was down for maintenance, something not communicated well through the park's online services. Beyond this, though, students were able to successfully solve problems about the first two rides. A lot of good work was put into calculating the thermal energy lost on Superman the Ride’s first drop. The students also predicted where on the ride they would experience the most negative and positive G-forces. Although they were wrong on both accounts, they picked very logical elements for their selections: the first drop for the most negative and the valley below the first drop for the most positive. Both of the correct elements were later in the layout and less easy to conceptualize the forces on, but the goal of having the students qualitatively think about forces over the course of a roller coaster proved successful.
After the group ride time, we broke for lunch and then let students go off in small groups to ride rides that they personally wanted to do. During this time, I got to ride my favorite ride in the park, Wicked Cyclone, but more importantly, I took an 8th grader who was feeling very hesitant about rides to experience their first roller coaster. For a short amount of time, I got to remember that feeling of being truly afraid of what a ride had in store for me, and that reminded me how my interest in roller coasters was formed. As a young kid, and arguably up to high school, I approached everything I did with a heavy dose of caution. I needed everything in order and struggled to stretch beyond my comfort zone. In 8th grade, ironically, I found roller coasters as a way that I could push myself to do something that really did horrify me. I was able to progressively move from the smallest rides all the way to the largest with the knowledge of all the stats and an understanding of how the rides keep riders safe.
As I stood in the line for the ride, I was put right back in my own shoes four years ago. I explained the ride’s statistics, forces, and layout in an attempt to make the experience feel more predictable and manageable. After a 20-minute wait, we were standing on the loading station, stepping into the cart. We began to strap into the ride, and I could tell that the student was having some reservations about the ride, but before they could protest, we were off.
The ride was a hit! They said it was not nearly as frightening as they imagined it would be and said that their only regret was not riding as many rides as they could have. I deeply believe that roller coasters can be incredibly empowering experiences, and I am glad I was able to give that to someone else.
I opened with this, so it seems only right to close with it as well. This was a tough year for me all around. I have had considerable academic stress with a lot of personal turmoil that I kept mostly contained within, and I will be the first to recognize that this project was not everything I intended it to be, nor was it my best personal work. Nonetheless, I am glad I had this project this year. It taught me a significant amount about myself and other people, and gave me some practical skills that my otherwise academic self would not have otherwise.