194 replies to this topic

[Maxwell58]

Hmmmm, looks small enough to enter in the winter contest.

But really, this is just way too awesome for me to handle.

[Helmut]

Awesome! Epic! Great! Super!

[TheSUCKCrew]

Awesome! Speed is extremely out of proportions, but whatever.
Really nice coaster, and really really huge!

[Blackkitty]

Yeah I was surprised by how much the track shakes on that first turn. Good thing the realism makes up for this!
BTW, the launch isn't automatic? I thought it was. Or atleast it looks like an automatic one.

[tornado96]

24000 pieces... That's absolutely incredible guys! You are definitely worthy of those builder tags!

[alpal]

Wow, I am speechless. Great Job.

[pkiknex25]

As I've said before, you guys certainly know how to build, large scale and small. Obviously, the speed has warped the track, so I wish there had been some track strengtheners to help that. But the speed imbalance is hard to ignore.

Overall, I'm neutral on this. Not disappointed, but not "OMG AMAZING" impressed either. The best part of this ride is how well you built at a large scale and size.

[Maxlaam]

Overall, I'm neutral on this. Not disappointed, but not "OMG AMAZING" impressed either. The best part of this ride is how well you built at a large scale and size.

That's almost how I think about it yes, it looks amazing from a distance but as soon as I see a train move it ruins the experience for me, I guess you guys build one of the nicest stationary-models

[Jumpge]

Awesome, just purely awesome. I am in awe right now...

Edit- The supporting was actually pretty accurate to the real ride. Maybe not the placement of the supports, but the style of supports real mattered most.

[LaMbChOpZ]

Like others have said, it looks great, but I'd be better if the speed was more realistic. Not that this coaster isn't bad or anything, but a bit more attention to detail when it came to supporting the ride would have really helped you out especially with speed (after watching the slow-motion).

Again, you two did a great job, but it's not that jaw dropping like everyone butters it up to be.

[-=TK=-]

Formula Rossa, explanations:

This is the last and only story for Formula Rossa, to explain everyone how we did things on the coaster itself and to explain some of the critism that has been given on the coaster.

First of some of you said that we had to change the supports to another way, but Koen and ik wanted to make a really realistic recreation of this awesome coaster. And we both thought the same about the supporting: When we make a recreation with tubes, the tubes have to be the same as on the real ride, to give it ultimate realism. That’s why some parts, especially the first turn shake, just because we wanted to add realistic supports for the coaster.

Then some of you said that the realism of this coaster isn’t really realistic, i must say that we definitely agree with you guys about that, but imagine yourself recreating a coaster with 3 turns with a diameter of more than 2 meters. Everyone knows that a coaster with knex looses a lot of speed in the turns, imagine building turns with more than 2 meters of diameter. It will loose a LOT of speed. So we had to use a launch mechanism that would launch the coaster’s cars so fast that the cars would also clear the track without needing a booster.

You must agree that using a booster or 2 doesn’t make the coaster better or more realistic than a launch that launches the coaster so fast that the speed over the first 2 hills and the turn doesn’t look really realistic.
Some suggestions were said, like that we had to use track strengtheners to make the track stronger than it was. Well, i can tell you that track strengtheners wouldn’t provide the non shaking of the coaster, it even adds weight to the connection points what will lead into even more shaking. Believe me, we tested that on the coaster when we set it up.

I also want to tell you something about the launch, we first wanted to get it automaticated. It would be possible if you would need a launch for smaller coasters than Formula Rossa, but Formula Rossa just needed a lot of speed to make the coaster clear the whole track. We needed 2x a 1m long rubberband (several rubberbands connected to eachother) wrapped around eachother to power the whole ride. We had to pull the rubberbands back ourself, because 10 knex motors geared down twice couldn’t even pull it back as far as we needed it to. And a really strong drill, on the strongest option geared down 4x didn’t even pull the rubberbands down as far as we wanted it to. So it was actually impossible to automatic the launch.
We really wanted to automate it but it just couldn’t work at all because of all the things that i just wanted to tell you.

I also want to say that i really liked the compliments from everyone and i can also imagine that some people didn’t like the coaster that much because the realism wasn’t good enough for them, but try to make a recreation of Formula Rossa with Tubes and on a 1:40 scale yourself, and you will probably end up with using boosters, or the same realism level as we had.
Thanks for reading this, i hope it makes a lot of things clearer for everyone about the realism of this ride.

-=Tk=-

[floris2burn]

The coaster looks very awesome, and it's a pitty it couldn't get automated. But automation isn't the main part about building a knex coaster.

Just a hint on the first turn. Why not take long rods and stick those in the ground to keep the track at place? Or perhaps use the metal pins people use to pin down a tent?

Cheers

[coastercrazy10]

I'm with Kevin here, it looks good when stationary but seeing the coaster in motion really ruined that experience for me. Good on you for making it work and keeping scale, but the speed loss is truly unfortunate.

-Ben

[RideOnKI]

I am in awe.......... i love this model.... this is now my favorite knex coaster.

[SwimZONE]

Although I missed this, I saw it on youtube, and I must say I was extremely impressed. It stunk that you had to launch it so fast that it almost destroyed the track each time. Really great coaster and I'm surprised you pulled it off. Great job.