The builder of The Beast roller coaster provided first-year engineering students with advice as they displayed their model-scale coasters in a year-end competition.
Nearly 30 years ago, Jeff Gramke helped build The Beast, then the fastest and tallest wooden roller coaster in the world, at Kings Island amusement park. He started off as a surveyor, but after the intended designer chose not to participate, Gramke and colleague Al Collins were chosen to design and engineer the legendary ride. Gramke, who is now manager of facilities, engineering and construction for Kings Island, used his expertise in the field to judge students’ roller coasters as part of their coursework.
“We’re looking for design, uniqueness and if it really works," Gramke said of himself and his fellow judges, who were faculty members. “It’s important to be unique, because everyone starts with the same package."
Of the 124 teams who built roller coasters as part of the Engineering 183 course, the 14 best presented their final models May 28. The students displayed their open-loop coasters, which consisted of track rails with two 25-foot lengths of ¼-inch flexible plastic tubing and a circuit board. The students measured and controlled velocity with eight speed sensors to ensure the roller coaster “car," which is really a large plastic marble, landed safely in a small box at the end of the “ride."
The roller coasters consisted minimally of loops, a bump and rise, curve and straight-away track, but the teams were not limited to those specifications and creativity was encouraged — as long as the roller coaster physics were still followed.
The “Supervisors" took the creativity notion to heart, as they were the only team to build a setting for their coaster. They made a model environment, with cars and people surrounding their roller coaster, which they called “The Playground." The group stressed consistency rather than being overly risky with their roller coaster.
"The coaster can’t be too wild and crazy," said Cameron Quatman, an electrical and computer engineering major, whose team members were Michael Conrad, Derek Ehlers, and James Fitz.
The “Supervisors" enjoyed a third-place finish and consistent results, but another group had no such luck. Joe Burch, a member of “Team Illmatic" and a freshman majoring in electrical engineering, said his group had as close of a call as possible.
"We were nervous because we spent all morning trying to make it work, and it didn’t work until the last practice run," Burch said.
While the “Supervisors" took third place, first-place honors went to “G-Force" team members Frank Dachtyl, Josh Epstein, Joe Bowes and Ross Krieg. The second-place winners were Sam Crone, Erin Hiestand, Derek Schmid and Michael Silla, who made up the “Dojo Masters" team.
The varied circumstances of each group’s roller coaster construction represented the unpredictability that occurs in the construction of the real amusement park rides. Gramke said none of the models would be feasible as an actual roller coaster because of friction losses that would have caused the G-forces to be too high, but Quatman still held a glimmer of hope.
"He wasn’t really looking to take it to Kings Island — that we know of," he said.
For more information about the college’s First-Year Engineering Program, visit engineering.osu.edu/fe.
