SooperDooperLooper

The day we had all been waiting for arrived earlier than usual this morning. Our physics class piled on the bus to Hershey Park at 8:00 AM (an hour early) in order to maximize our time on the coasters. We arrived at around 10 and Mary and Bill handed out the accelerometers and video cameras (that came in the ultra-stylish fanny packs and vests) that we would need to take data on our roller coaster.

It turned out that even though the ride our group chose (the sooperdooperLooper) was not the most popular, it was a great one to choose to collect data for because—as the name suggests—there were a couple of very exciting loops in the tracks and the line was practically non-existent. We finished the two runs of data taking that we needed by about 11:30. We peeked at the accelerometer reading before saving our data and the graphs were pretty incredible. The video we took from the front car must also be pretty cool. I am exited to bring the readings back to the lab and make some sense out of all of it. We turned our high-tech devices back into Bill and Mary and we had the rest of the day (or at least the next four hours) to explore the park and ride as many rides as possible in that time.

Of course the first one Brian and I rode was the most popular ride in the park because it is clearly the most thrilling. It takes you straight up vertical tracks and the drops you into a series of high speed loops and tumbles. The line took almost an hour, but it was definitely the most thrilling ride in the park and I'm glad we waited.

Some other fun rides we went on included a coaster that brought us from zero to 60 in some ridiculously small amount of time and a wooden coaster where two carts raced on separate tracks (Alex's won). I also got a wicked half-face face paint that I fortunately got after the splash drop ride where we all got completely soaked. I felt very lucky for remembering to bring a change of clothes. A bus ride home looking like this would not have been comfortable.

All the spikes in adrenaline got me so tired I couldn't stay awake on the bus ride home. When we arrived at the quad, we grabbed a quick dinner and then I went out to see the movie Terrible Bosses with one of the Friday movie groups. Again, it was slightly immature but quite entertaining. The whole night, people would stare at me and I was very confused for a while until I remembered that my face paint was still on and looked rather strange outside of the amusement park.

Tomorrow, the excitement continues with a trip to Washington, DC.