Date of Award

Spring 2012

Document Type

Open Access Senior Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Department

W.M. Keck Science Department

Second Department

Physics

First Thesis Reader

Scot A. C. Gould

Second Thesis Reader

Thomas Dershem

Rights Information

© 2012 Kelsey Lubetich

Terms of Use & License Information


This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License.

Abstract

The work presented in this thesis was undertaken to quantitatively determine the best place to sit on a roller coaster. Maximizing the time spent feeling weightless and the highest value of negative Z acceleration were used as criteria for the best seat. Acceleration values were measured on the California Screamin' roller coaster at Disney California Adventure Park using an iPhone and an application to record data from its accelerometers. After analyzing acceleration data, it was determined that the front row had the greatest negative acceleration in the z direction and was therefore the "best place" to sit.


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