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Title : The Science of Summer Fun!

Author : Shay Mauz

News Type : International

 

In this article by Shay Mauz, talks about summer parks having the laws of physic guiding the parks. The laws guide you by showing by showing the movement or by showing you what it is going to be like. That is the science part. Also this year more than 85 million people are going to water parks, says the International Association of Water Parks.  

The science starts with gravity. Gravity is where a force pulls an object to the ground. Gravity is important because without it you can’t go down the slide you go up. After that they add the water so you can go down the slide easier.

 

Now you have to check the safety of the ride. The things you have to check are how big the rider is, how fast the water goes and what the rider is wearing. If you don’t check all the things, then your water slide will just go wrong. It would be the worst unsafest slide ever!

 

In the article, they use the word acceleration. Acceleration means to go faster, by going faster it will make more people have more fun. “  Acceleration is fun”, says Brian Jones a physicist at Colorado State University. But that is only one of the things that make the slide fun.If you went on a normal water slide it would probably go 20 -30 miles per hour. However then if you think of a plane it would probably go 600 miles per hour. Then on a water slide people are screaming and yelling but on an airplane they are not , but why?

Curves. The curves are the answer. With the speed and the curves make a perfect water slide. Curves and slopes will make the slide have more  acceleration too.

During your ride you will feel some amazing moments. Like the zero – gravity moment. That is where you feel like there is no gravity. This happens when you go over a bump and you have a perfect amount of acceleration. “It’s that moment when you’re no longer going up and you haven’t started coming back down yet,” Ray Smegal told TFK. Ray Smegal is incharge of a waterslide company in Canada called Proslide Technology.  “You literally feel like you’re hanging in zero gravity for about a second and a half.”

You know how sometimes when you go on the swings at the playground. “ You know that instant at the top when the chain goes slack, and it feels like your stomach is in your chest? “ That’s a zero – gravity moment. This is because when you reach the top your organs are going up too but then when you go back down your organs might still be going up!

 

For a long time big changes have been made in water slide technology. Designers are using 3D printing to make smaller slides so they can see what is going on. “Emerging tools could change the way slides are created in the future,” Smegal says. Technology that people are using now may lead to better slides. But every slide they build will always have the same basic things.

Personal Response

I chose this article because I wanted to know how designers could make the water go so fast but still make it very safe. Also i wanted to know what makes a waterslide so much fun.

 

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You might not believe this but physics plays a major role in waterslides.# foxmeadow pride #TFK

                               KK