One of the most common roller coaster projects is for students to design a roller coaster. They will need to understand the equations that encompass motion and speed and design a roller coaster with that in mind. Roller coaster design projects should be completely open ended, just like real roller coasters are. Students can use any materials, like metal, plastic, paper, or balsa wood, and any type of vehicle. The emphasis on these projects should be the equations that are needed to allow the vehicle to travel from one place to another.
Experiments with existing roller coasters are another type of project that students can do. These projects require access to an amusement park or another place with roller coasters, and might require the permission of the park itself. However, students can use gravity meters on roller coasters to see how much they really do pull, or can measure the different forces using different types of meters. Other experiments, like the effect of a roller coaster on water or other elements, will require you to get permission from the amusement park and probably schedule a specific time to do the project.
Students can do projects in which they build models or roller coasters or use already designed models or roller coasters, and then see if the weight of the cars has any impact on the amount of time it takes the cars to travel the entire coaster. Simply by adding or taking away weight from the cars and then timing the roller coaster, students can create equations about roller coaster weights and times.
In these projects, students will create a model of a roller coaster first, or the teacher will obtain one. Then, they will make changes to the roller coaster, such as lengthening the curves, adding height to the initial drop, or making the coaster go up and down. Then, students will see if these changes have any impact on the roller coaster's ability to run correctly.