Kids build real-life roller coaster

Here's an interesting activity that ties in with the Roller Coaster Tycoon learning curriculum: a group of 14- and 15-year-olds built a 400-foot roller coaster in their school gymnasium. Apparently, each year, students in the program try to out-do the previous year's roller coaster achievement, and this year, the students were limited in their design by the size and height of the gymnasium. According to Dominic Farrar, a cocreator of the Odyssey program in Southern California where this happened:

In each of these projects, concepts such as simple machines, algebraic equations and physics principles such as Newton's laws and other various applications become relevant to the learners as they create tangible products that bring the curriculum to life...And there is the roller coaster, and literally this is just an overwhelming experience, powerful like none other, and it's really not what the teachers have done, it's what the kids have been able to create. But it's magic. Because there is a spirit. Because there is a passion. They believe.