Project Rollercoaster - The Grand Finale!

Around a year ago, our Nerdfighters asked if they could go to Alton Towers.  I told them that if they prepared magnificent research projects on rollercoasters, then yes.  They did.

Here's Isay's account of the day:

On the 16^th May 2012, I and twenty one other students as well as two members of staff sampled the early morning sunshine at the gates of Roundwood Park School. We were waiting, an hour before school starts to board a coach on what was to become a tiring but exciting day.

Since the beginning of last year, the library has become home to a new club called the Nerdfighters. Once a week, we gather in the library, discuss topics that interest us and come up with ways to make the world suck less. One such discussion contemplated the brilliance of rollercoasters, and before too long a project had been founded with the condition that if we worked hard and produced projects with a rollercoaster theme, we might be able to justify a school trip to a theme park.  So that was how we found ourselves boarding our coach with cries of DFTBA    (don’t forget to be awesome) on our way to Alton Towers.

The coach journey was subdued for the most part, with many of us trying to catch up on our sleep before reaching our destination; although by the final hour we had had many renditions of ABBA tracks as well as having set up the tradition to cheer whenever we saw anything relating to Alton Towers. This then lead to the coach being very noisy as we reached the village of Alton!

Our timing was perfect and so after posing with Sid the Sloth, we found ourselves without any queues to have to deal with, and with the run of the park virtually to ourselves. We decided that going on absolutely everything was the best idea for how to spend the day, and so we started at the back of the park with Air, Nemesis and Nemesis Sub-Terra. For those who did not fancy the Nemesis Franchise- seeing that Air was a firm favourite – time was taken to sit out in the sunshine (!) and consult the map while commenting on the nerdiest topics available.

We then moved onto a small rollercoaster based on a mine train, which was fun and light hearted, before getting soaked in the Rapids- not helped by the fact that you could pay for a water cannon to soak unsuspecting riders! After a brief lunch break in which we cooed over some very fluffy goslings and then got chased by their parents, we walked on to the Sonic Spinball- which proved very popular indeed, despite the threat of rain.

Next was the highly anticipated Oblivion- in which you are dropped for 180ft into a dark tunnel before resurfacing at the other side at speeds of up to 65mph. While quite a few more of us just watched from a distance, it did not stop a good proportion of the group running from ride to ride and then regretting it afterwards.

Thankfully for some, the next ride was quite a walk away from the Oblivion part of the park. The time had come for us to embark upon the Dark Forest, which unsurprisingly, is home to what is reported to be two of the scariest rides in the park. First up was Rita, which was both the most anticipated and the most dreaded rollercoaster on the entire trip if the excited but nervous expressions were anything to go by. I personally was cursing my adrenalin-fuelled side for deciding that this particular rollercoaster would be a good idea, as for my first time on a ‘proper’ rollercoaster I had cleverly chosen one that accelerated from 0-100mph in 2.5 seconds with a G-force of 4.7. Nevertheless, we all piled on and although most of us were screaming, a select few still managed to sing the Muppets theme tune the entire way round.

Next was Thirteen, which had only a few participators, as many of us were too tired and still recovering form Rita to experience the only freefall drop in rollercoaster history.

We had by that point been on pretty much everything in the park, so we instead returned to Air by popular demand to once again feel as if we were flying. Then for those who still felt the need for adrenalin, Nemesis and Ripsaw were revisited, while the rest of us sat in the sun once again and marvelled at one member of the party who had managed to eat 10 donuts throughout the day.

While some of our group decided to revisit the Sonic Spinball and other rides, some of us who felt that our last ride should be one in which we once again got soaking wet, decided on The Flume. After being covered in water once again, as well as being attacked by rubber ducks, we exited our last ride and then encountered no less than a pirate driving down the street singing and dancing as he did so. Point Proven: Never underestimate the randomness of Alton Towers.

We left the theme park both exhausted and still wishing for more, although any thoughts of rushing back around the theme park were soon abandoned as everyone realised how tired they were on the coach journey. The day had been memorable, exciting, and a lot better than maths, and so we were sure that we would have many reminders of our trip for a long time to come. One of the ‘reminders’ however, became especially noticeable when we came into school the next day with sunburn from the lovely weather!

Our hard work over our projects definitely paid off, and we will certainly have a lot to ‘report’ at the next Nerdfighters meeting. One question came out of this trip however, and one that we as the Nerdfighter community really want an answer to. When can we go again?