Design a Marble Roller Coaster

Your challenge is to design a roller coaster for a marble with several chutes, turns, and a high elevation (height). The key is to ensure that the passengers (marble) makes it through the roller coaster without falling off. If you do not have a marble at home, you could design a roller coaster for any other round object (ball, piece of fruit).

Step 1: Review the Marble Coaster Rubric. How can you design your marble coaster to achieve “accomplished” on all components? If you were designing a roller coaster for a theme park, the park operators might have requirements similar to these.

Step 2: Collect items around your house you can use to build your coaster. Use the Engineering Design Process Guide to help you map out your design and then prototype, test and improve your solution.

Step 3: Compare your coaster to the rubric. Did you meet all of the requirements? If not, what could you do to improve your coaster?

Step 4:  The park operators have requested that you make the ride a little slower so that it’s enjoyable for younger kids and adults. What could you do to allow the marble to reach the ground at a slower rate?

Step 5: Ask your parent or teacher to share a picture or video of one of your roller coaster designs on social media using #MakerMondayTN and #LearningAtHome!