Um...hi. It's been a while.
Something weird happened. High school ended and suddenly this thing ended up in my basement. Has anyone had this happen to them? Weird.
All jokes aside, it was nice to get back to building again. I tried to keep building through sophomore year but I started giving myself a tough course load, which meant less time, and building just couldn't happen. 2.5 years down the road and here I am again, a little bit more mature and a little less overambitious (only a little 
). Unfortunately, I'm going to have to start taking it down starting tomorrow because I move into the University of Maryland on Thursday!
Sidenote, and I apologize because I know this is the wrong section, but BGTKing, you went to Georgia Tech, right? I'm curious to hear what your overall thoughts were about your experience there, because my college decision was between there and UMD and I was kind of scared off by some people, including more than one tour guide that talked about how hellish their lifestyles were.
Anyway, back on track. As you can see one thing that hasn't changed is my endless rambling. I've always wanted to build a launch and I've had a couple of failed attempts in the past. In April, my family bought a new grill, and in the packaging was a huge elastic band, and of course you know what my first thought was. I got to work...
I set out to use it to build a cable launch very similar to those of the Intamin Accelerators. If you look in the pictures, you may be able to see that the green band is under the launch track and attaches to the base near the beginning. It is attached to a granite rod that has yarn tied to both ends, which extend to two small drums, which are on either side of the one large drum. The drum is big enough that it only revolves 3-4 times during the launch!
Here are some nerd pics
The tension wheel. It has three layers of attachment because it tears its self apart otherwise. I know that that doesn't give it much room to move, but it clearly helps with slowing down the catch car.
In terms of stopping the catch car, I realized the best option was to wrap the yarn around one of the rods in the drum at a point where it must stop when the catch car reaches the end of the launch. The tension wheel appears to help absorb a lot of the shock when this happens, causing the slowdown to be slightly less than abrupt. It's accidentally perfect. I'm so proud of this launch, I really don't want to take it down.
Now, for the layout! Does anyone play with nearby wires and make roller coaster elements, or am I the only one? Cause that's how I came up with a lot of this thing.
Layout pics!
It starts off with a top hat that goes a bit beyond vertical on both sides, which is something i've always wanted to do.
Then it goes into what I like to call an "airtime immelmann." Basically, it's an immelmann that exits the wrong way, creating some sick negative g's.
Then, some nice high speed airtime.
Another element that I've wanted to try for a long time. I guess it's sort of like a drawn out cobra roll, or you could say it's a rollout and flying snake dive, I don't care. The point is that it's an extended elevated moment, with an inverting entry and exit. Not surprisingly, this element (especially the entrance) was a major speedkiller, and it didn't help that the last time I lubed the axles was 2 years ago.
Looks a bit like the Smiler logo, eh? I like it. I'm officially naming it a smiler element.
Everything after that was done in the last 2 days and I know it looks a bit rough, but there's something about it that I like. It looks so twisty!
I was thinking of the original Maverick barrel roll when I was making this (high speed turn into high speed turn), but let's face it, it's not exactly high speed. It's a regular barrel roll.
There are definitely a few sharp spots here and there throughout the ride and it's not the most spectacular thing in the world, but overall, I'm really damn proud of this thing. I had gotten used to my dreams being to much for the K'nex to handle, but somehow these crazy stupid ideas that I had for elements actually worked out. I still consider myself an amateur builder, but I've impressed myself with how sturdy it is. There's really only one, maybe two places where you can spot significant shaking. All of the fast areas are hard as a rock! It's pretty unlikely that I end up using this stuff again in the future, so I'm content with this being my last. It's a success in my book. I'll close off with some videos. If anyone wants to see any other angles, I'll see if I can get them, and I'll be back to comment on this thread. Otherwise, goodbye again! It was cool to see all that you guys have done!
View 1:
View 2:
I tried to get a pov of the launch. I used to have one of those keychain cameras but I can't seem to find it. This was done with a regular digital camera.
Ok. I'm done typing. I promise.
Edited by amagzi24, 22 August 2016 - 11:51 AM.
