STIIX Roller Coaster: Engineering the Ride of a Lifetime
In the STIIX Roller Coaster Project, students step into the shoes of theme-park engineers in the bustling city of STIIX-Ville, tasked with designing and optimizing a roller coaster that thrills while respecting physical laws. Over a 3–4 hour unit, teams explore how gravitational potential energy, kinetic energy, force, and momentum all combine to give riders their greatest highs (and lush lows).
Using five instructional videos (Intro, Academic Concepts, How-To Build, Testing & Evaluation, and a Real-World Engineer Spotlight), students gain a foundational understanding of coaster dynamics before laying out their own track designs. They sketch ideas, plan drop heights and curves, and build using STIIX’s modular building materials to create scale coaster models.
Student teams then test their coasters, sending a marble or cart through their creation to gather data on speed, time, and stability. Using that feedback, they redesign to refine performance, smooth out turns, or maximize drop height. The iterative process not only mirrors real engineering but helps students internalize how energy transforms (from potential to kinetic) throughout a ride.
Educators receive a complete support bundle: slide decks, build-logs, evaluation worksheets, and reflection prompts—aligned with real-world science and engineering practices. The STIIX Roller Coaster Project encourages systems thinking, collaboration, and critical problem-solving, making it perfect for STEM or physics classes.
Bring structure and excitement to hands-on learning with STIIX-Ville — your digital hub for project guides, assessments, and student progress tracking.
What’s Included in the Box:
- STIIX structural building sticks & connectors
- Track-building components (straights, curves, supports)
- Marble / cart or coaster vehicle (for testing)
- Design-sketch worksheets & build-log journals
- Testing & evaluation guide (speed, time, stability, force)
- Reflection & redesign prompts
- Teacher slide deck & lesson plan
- Instructional video series (5 modules)
