Awesome Roller Coasters

Most roller coasters don’t incorporate the local environment. The Jais Sledder is a single-car coaster built into a mountain. Coaster Studios takes us on a ride filled with thrilling twists and turns while taking in the rocky desert scenery of the United Arab Emirates. It takes over six minutes to climb to the top, but the downhill part looks worth it.

The Euthanasia Coaster is an insane hypothetical roller coaster designed to kill its passengers. Until now, it’s only existed as a design on paper and a non-working model. Thanks to Coaster Obsessed, we now have a working version of the killer coaster, made out of K’Nex building kits. It’s the last thrill ride its pint-size passengers will ever take.

Anakeesta in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, is home to the Rail Runner, a single-rail mountain roller coaster. Alex Ojeda took a ride on the open-air coaster and shared this first-person footage. Each car holds a single rider and has its own handbrake to control speed if it’s going too fast for you. The track is just 1600 feet long, but it still looks like a blast.

For his latest build, JBV Creative combined elements of a roller coaster with one of those rolling ball clocks. His enormous tabletop clock tells time using wooden balls that roll into multiple tracks representing hours, 10-minute increments, and minutes. It took weeks of designing, planning, and fabrication, but the finished piece is a true work of art.

Cedar Point’s Magnum XL-200 is one of the world’s most beloved roller coasters. CoasterWriter shows off a backyard replica of the thrill ride, built using K’nex construction toys, and dubbed the “Magnum XL-300.” Johnny from 3D Coaster created the detailed 3D-printed coaster car replica. Be sure to take the POV ride too.

LEGO builder ScottMakesMOCs spent an unfathomable amount of time creating this Mario Kart roller coaster. The intricate build includes Kart-inspired cars, Bowser’s castle, an airship, and lots of characters and details from the Nintendo game. He’s recently built an expansion to the theme park, and Beyond the Brick has a great interview video.

MicroCoaster’s miniature roller coaster kit lets you create custom tracks from over 900 parts, with 19 feet of track and a battery-powered lift hill. The S-scale coaster that rolls on its rails was inspired by Cedar Point’s Maverick coaster and rolls on 30 steel wheels. The initial batch is sold out but subscribe to their newsletter for updates on more releases.

We’ve seen some pretty awesome LEGO roller coasters over the years. Master Builder Alec says this build for the LEGOLAND Discovery Center Bay Area is the world’s largest. While we’re not sure about that claim, it’s still impressive at 9 feet tall and constructed from 30,000 pieces. Here’s a POV video of the ride.

Software engineer Stephen Rogers aka TheCaptainSpain is developing CoasterMania, a virtual reality/augmented reality game that lets you build tiny roller coasters in your living room. This brief demo video shows off its Line Rider-style gameplay on a Meta Quest VR headset. Enjoy more fun gameplay footage here.

Most roller coasters have braking systems that automatically slow down their cars as they go into corners and at the end of the ride. Tom Scott is here to show us Melbourne, Australia’s Great Scenic Railway, one of the last roller coasters to require a human operator to control the brakes aboard each and every trip.

Recently, we checked out an awesome K’nex version of Cedar Point’s Steel Vengeance roller coaster. Due to popular demand, its maker, Venomeater123, captured video footage of the ride from the point of view of a rider. In case you’re wondering, here’s what it looks like on the actual ride.

If you’ve played with K’nex construction toys, you know they they’re especially good for marble mazes and roller coasters. K’nex builder Venomeater123 shows off his epic roller coaster based on Steel Vengeance from Cedar Point. It took nearly a year to build the working replica of the world’s longest hybrid coaster.

This 3756-piece Loop Coaster set sends passengers up an elevator, down a thrilling vertical drop, and through loops and twists. The set includes 11 Minifigures, a park bench, balloon cart, hot dog stand, pretzel cart, and a height marker sign. Upgrade with a LEGO Powered Up motor to automate the ride. This roller coaster drops 7.2022.

The normal way to get to the top of a roller coaster track is to strap in and take a ride. But freerunners Jason Paul, Krystian Kowalewski, and Silke Sollfrank prefer to use their feet. The trio headed to Germany’s Erlebnispark Tripsdrill amusement park for a thrilling run through their large wooden coaster.

Do you love roller coasters? The guys at CoasterDynamix make teeny models of virtual thrill rides for your desk or bookshelf. They come in a variety of designs, including traditional, looped, and adventure-themed rides, each sold as an easy-to-build kit. Find more variants here.

We love mini amusement park rides built from LEGO. Half-Asleep Chris shows off the floor-to-ceiling LEGO roller coaster he built, which includes loops, a big vertical drop, lighting effects, and even a smoke machine. He cheated a bit with the wooden platforms, but building the structure from LEGO would have been cost-prohibitive.

This miniature roller coaster is made from 3D-printed parts and has a motorized launch system and working brakes. The cars, twisty tracks, and supports were digitally fabricated. Its motion is controlled by an Arduino, micro servo motors, and a DC motor. It took 3D Coasters roughly six months to complete the project.

Normally, when you aim a video camera towards the passengers on a rollercoaster, you hear screams or at least see some expressions on the rider’s faces. The same can’t be said when all of your ride’s occupants are teddy bears, like in this cute and soothing clip from the Walibi Holland amusement park.

Readers have commented that we called things roller coasters that are actually trains since they’re self-powered. Well, here’s a case where we’re using the term properly. This impressive Hot Wheels track by 5MadMovieMakers keeps cars moving with gravity, a handful of motorized booster stations, and… a leaf blower.

After pushing his CPU and RAM to the limit with a mega-fireworks display in the physics-based sim game Planet Coaster, Let’s Game It Out decided he was going to build himself a terrifying virtual theme park, designed exclusively to torture its oblivious visitors in hilarious ways.

You might think that there are just two types of roller coaster – metal and wood, but there are many more shades of grey in thrill ride design. WIRED met up with engineer Korey Kiepert of The Gravity Group for an explanation of the main types of coaster, what makes them different, and what goes into designing a coaster.

Expert LEGO builder Akiyuki takes us on a ride on a 224-foot-long train track that he designed and built. Along the way, you’ll enjoy twists, turns, loops, cliffs, bridges, and a few obstacles. The self-propelled camera car’s speed is more railroad than roller coaster, but it’s still a fun ride, especially watching it climb the stairs.

PC gamers have been able to build amazing and vomit-inducing thrill rides with Planet Coaster for a few years now. Soon, console gamers can join in the fun too, with a new version slated for release on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X. Drops 11.10.2020. Gameplay demo here.