Auburn’s 9th and 10th grade P-TECH students and Career Coaches had an exciting morning participating in a Roller Coaster Challenge on February 17, 2017 at Auburn High School.  The students and coaches were split into teams and engineered a roller coaster design that a marble would travel down without falling off.  The teams whose marble could travel the track at the slowest pace would win. The guidelines were that the coaster must have at least one loop, a turn, and a soft landing. Using the concepts the students had learned earlier about forces, motion, inertia, and energy helped during the design process.  The students and Career Coaches built models out of foam pipe insulators and tape, decorating the cafeteria walls with their designs. The groups were timed, and the marble completing the track the slowest clocked in at 9.8 seconds.  All the teams had fun and worked together–which was the ultimate goal.

Thanks to:

  • John Case- ZF TRW Automotive
  • Alan Dungey- Auburn Leathercrafters
  • Joe Giacona- Tessy
  • Dan Herrling-SRC
  • Kyle Karasek- Tessy
  • Ed Onori-Beardsley
  • Andrew Rindfleisch-Welch Allyn
  • Katie Stout- Cayuga Community College
  • Erin Tones- Sunoco