Last week our Aspire AMS Year 8 classes went to Dreamworld for an educative and fun day out. Check out what some of our students had to say below:
Dreamworld was what you call a … different kind of experience. First of all, the morning that we were about to leave it began to rain and I mean it rained quiet a lot. Everyone got scared that all of the good rides were going to be closed. However, the day turned out to be super fun and everyone really enjoyed themselves and I think the Steel Taipan got tired of constantly being used on a random Tuesday.
At the beginning of the day we had a wonderful presentation by one of the staff members named Rosie, she showed us what factors are considered when a rollercoaster is designed and role forces, and especially g-forces, play in the thrill of the ride. As well as this, when we went to different roller coasters we were able to see what kinds of forces act on the rollercoasters. Out of every ride that I went on the Sky Voyager was probably my favourite because I had never seen anything like that until then. Thank you to all the teachers and staff at both Dreamworld and Varsity College that made this memorable day a reality.
Ayati Gor – 8Y
Dreamworld was a fantastic experience! I never knew that you could use a tool to find the speed/velocity of the rides and it was really interesting to see how the rides were made. This links to our physics unit from term 1 as rollercoasters use specific energy types and the energy types transform and transfer such as the use of gravitational potential energy and kinetic energy for when the seats go down a hill on the rollercoaster.
In addition to this, it was really interesting to learn about G – forces as now that I think about it, we feel them a lot. The two main G-forces that we learned about were lateral G and linear G. A lateral G is when you go through a corner and it forces you to hit the side of the seat and a linear G is when you accelerate and the force pushes you to the back of the seat. We also learned many interesting facts about roller coasters such as how long that they take to build, how much they coast, where should you place the rollercoasters, etc.
Overall, Dreamworld was a fantastic experience and I learned a lot!
Tahani Sawar – 8Y
The day at dreamworld was an incredible experience not only for fun but for education. We were taught many amazing things from the presentation shown to us at the beginning of the day. This included what G-force is, how kinetic, potential and electrical energy is used and applied in rollercoasters, centrifugal force and more. These concepts tied into our curriculum very well because while we were taught the theory behind all of these concepts in class, we were able to see how they are applied in real life scenarios. This also has shown us how all of the theoretical calculations must be used correctly and how physics principles work to the rollercoaster’s advantage to both make the experience safe and fun. In our group we got to use the radar gun on the steel taipan and see how the speed changes when the 3 different forces are used throughout the ride which was very fun. In conclusion, the dreamworld excursion was an amazing experience whilst also having a lot of cool educational value to it.
Lincoln Schaeche – 8Y
