In the newspaper the other day, there was an article that caught my interest about a couple of college engineering students who built a homemade roller coaster in their back yard (with mom’s reluctant approval). I figured there would be video of their creation on youtube.com, but I was unable to find the exact coaster from the article. I did, however, find many videos featuring brave and creative souls fashioning their own various types of thrill rides and testing them out – some so amusing I had to put them together. You can probably tell by the picture on the video if it’s going to be one you’ll want to watch in action. And by the way, more than a few of these trials reminded me of that article I read and wrote about a while back about reasons for common ER visits called: Don’t Laugh, It Could Happen To You…
This guy rides his backyard roller coaster in a little chair, and it even has an inversion:
This guy uses a little mining type cart, and he seems to achieve some pretty good speed:
This one looks more like it’s on train tracks, but it’s a long ride, and he also looks like he hits some pretty decent speeds:
This one’s not a roller coaster, but sort of homemade gravitron:
Are you going to be as surprised as I was about the speeds this ATV uses to wind up this poor lady’s sling shot? This is one heck of a human sling shot!!
And finally, this video begins with saying this kid’s parents were out of town… uh, oh. This guy builds a slip n’ slide off the 2nd story of his house. Does anyone else find it funnily ironic that the test subject gets congratulated after his run by a guy with his arm in a sling? The first tester, perhaps?
I seem to remember 2 little girls who tried to make an amusement ride using a red wagon and our dog, who was probably terrorized for the rest of her life.
That last video is so something that my brother and his friends would do given the time, materials and opportunity. Kids these days.
Yep, that last one was like the waterslide I went down at camp, if just a bit less safe! Did anyone else think “hamster wheel” with the homemade gravitron? Lastly, I had to laugh at the still at the beginning of the one rollercoaster video looking like a track headed into a brick wall- the injuries that would be sustained by running into a brick wall would be not unlike what would likely happen to me if I were to try any of these (well, except maybe the gravitron- just a heart attack there if I tried to be the runner).