Fremont students build, test amusement rides prototypes

Using household items, such as cardboard, pipe cleaners, straws and duct tape, Fremont Middle School students constructed amusement park ride prototypes and tested them for speed and physics.

Nearly 250 seventh-graders made the amusement rides Monday as they conducted Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematic (STEM) activities at the Mundelein school.

"Over the course of two days, students have been working in design teams to create a prototype of an amusement-park ride applying physics, as well as the mathematics that they've learned throughout the year," seventh grade science teacher Emily Loerakker said.

The students used iPads to test their calculations on prototype rides named Super Swings, Shock Drop, Speedy Gonzalez and The Fall of Fate.

"This is pretty exciting. We are building a roller coaster, or the prototype of it, so we can calculate the speed and the length of it," seventh-grader Ayden Boudreaux said as he checked the prototype water ride that was taped on the walls of the classroom. "It's cool because you get to see all the numbers and how everything works and all the physics, and the speed, and the momentum."

While one group was working on the prototypes and dynamics of their projects, another set of students was developing a marketing campaign for the ride, as if they were preparing to propose it to Six Flags Great America or Kings Island.