Q&A for How to Design a Roller Coaster Model

Use plastic tubing (which you can find at Ace, Home Depot, etc), PVC Pipes (which you can also find at Ace, Home Depot, etc), and a wooden base board. You will need items to anchor down the PVC pipes to the wood. Also, get electrical tape to attach the tubing to the pipes. You'll need screws to keep the materials in place as well.

It will take around 10-14 weeks. It requires a lot of planning, then you have to buy the supplies, build the model, and then test it out.

You could use the roller model to demonstrate kinetic and potential energy. You could also test different brakes/launches and see which one is the best for different speeds!

I've designed many large scale model roller coasters myself, and what I find is that if you want to build it from scratch, pulley wheels can grip the sides of the track for wheels and are pre-assembled. You may find that wheels as small as you need them aren't sold. For the body of the car, I used wood and rubber sections to make it more flexible between the chunks of wood if you want a longer car. For seats, if you are interested, I found some premade small wooden chairs at our nearby craft store that I used wood glue to paste onto the wooden boards. Building the car is by far the hardest part of making a model roller coaster, so keep trying! It took me four months to design and build mine.