Mentors, Be careful what you teach your Future Engineers

[IKE]

Pretty cool clip I haven't seen before.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIzDN317Pc8

[Andrew Schreiber]

That was pretty awesome, must say that the time and money spent on it should have gone to a FIRST team ^_^

[billbo911]

Here I was, expecting to see trouble coming, now I'm ROFLMBO. Excellent!!!
I think I'll watch it again.

[synth3tk]

Originally Posted by billbo911

Here I was, expecting to see trouble coming, now I'm ROFLMBO. Excellent!!!
I think I'll watch it again.

lol, same here! I thought it was a warning to some team issues.

Pretty sweet, I have to say!

[EricH]

That's either REALLY, REALLY COOL or some pretty good video editing.

I notice that they don't really show the base of the structure. That's probably a good thing.

[artdutra04]

Originally Posted by EricH

That's either REALLY, REALLY COOL or some pretty good video editing.

I notice that they don't really show the base of the structure. That's probably a good thing.

You do know the video is fake, right?

Just like CNN's "holograms". They may be funny, but they are all fake.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by artdutra04

You do know the video is fake, right?

Just like CNN's "holograms". They may be funny, but they are all fake.

That's actually what I was thinking. They don't show the base, the train's evidently a passenger train (the speed is the tipoff), it didn't stop (and would have tried to if the engineer had seen this huge loop), the boards looked like they were next to the track, and I don't think any train other than maybe a bullet train could handle that loop. (And the loop looked like a roller coaster loop anyway.)

[IKE]

As long as were playing the "Is this even possible" game, here comes the math:

As long as v^2/r is greater than gravity, you can make the loop. The kicker on a passenger train is that r actually has to be pretty large (Trains are not terribly flexible in the vertical plane). Just to see the math, if r=100feet the loop would be at least 200 feet tall (That puts it up there with some of the tallest coasters). v^2/100>32.2 ft/s^2 therefore V^2 = 3220 and thus v would be about 57 ft/s which is about 40mph. Now that is the speed at the peak. Assuming that the train has low power to weight ratio you can figure the entrance speed required to do the loop. The looh height H times Gravity times the mass (mgH) will equal the change in kinetic energy between the top and the bottom (0.5*m*V1^2 - 0.5*m*V2^2). Mass cancels out so gH=0.5*(V1^2-V2^2) This means 12880=(V1^2-57^2) therefore V1^2=12880+3220... V1=126ft/s = about 87mph

So obviously this is nearly impossible because Back to the Future 3 showed us that if a train hits 88mph you will end up in the past or future, or some sort of alternate universe.

[Ian Curtis]

Alternatively, just pause the Youtube video as the train is going around the loop. You can tell that it's computer generated because the train and structure look, well, computer generated.

[Akash Rastogi]

hahah, very nice. Although this video has been posted on here before. I remember but I don't recall who posted it.

[IKE]

http://what-if.xkcd.com/43/

I really love xkcd, and the What-if sections are some of my favorites. I just saw this one and had to dig up this thread.

[IKE]

Originally Posted by billbo911

Here I was, expecting to see trouble coming, now I'm ROFLMBO. Excellent!!!
I think I'll watch it again.

I tried to get a catchy title so that others would enjoy. Train Roller Coaster just didn't have the same ring.

[billbo911]

Originally Posted by IKE

I tried to get a catchy title so that others would enjoy. Train Roller Coaster just didn't have the same ring.

Your title is PERFECT!!

[Gdeaver]

Today has been a naste day at work. That brought out a little smile.