The Table Eight Tornado
By: Ian Flader, Tyler Breeding,
Uchung Whang, and Nick Rutledge
Starting Lineup
Introduction


The goal of our project is to create a device that will
simulate the motion of a roller coaster.
A good portion of the materials used in this project
were considered to be discard materials that we
found. However, we did have to make some purchases
with the project, but the cost did not exceed $38 by
our estimates.
Overview


The goal of our project is to create a device that will
simulate the motion of a roller coaster. The object
completing the run will be a small metal ball, and the
direction it will take will be one similar to the spiral of a
tornado.
Once at the bottom, the object will launch into a catch and
will fall down the catch onto the “trigger” of a set mouse
trap. Wired to the mouse trap is an interrupted section of
the load-bearing wire of an extension cord. Once the ball
hits and trips the trap, the catch of the trap will come
down on the two leads of the wire to establish a circuit,
which will then trigger a set of lights and a radio.
The Table Eight Tornado
Energy Conversions

Ball
 Potential

Energy (Gravitational)  Kinetic Energy
Ball entering catch (funnel)
 Potential
Energy (Gravitational) + Kinetic Energy 
Kinetic Energy

Mouse Trap
 Elastic
Energy
Potential Energy  Rotational Kinetic
Conclusion
Construction took 7 hours by all four
teammates.
 Problems occurred in:

 Launch
angles giving different run times and
causing the ball to stop.
 Keeping pipes upright.
 Having the funnel positioned to trigger mouse trap.

We, along with Patrick Berge, are devout fans
of Johnny Cash (R.I.P.).