Essay | The Physics Behind the Giant Drop Ride

The Giant Drop is a free fall ride, which allows the rider to experience the feeling of weightlessness. Essentially, it is a gondola, which is lifted 120 metres above the ground along a thick pole, then dropped and stopped before reaching the ground.

As the gondola travels upwards electrically by a winch, electrical energy is being transformed into gravitational potential energy, which builds up as the gondola gets nearer to the top. The gondola is then dropped and free-falls, where gravitational potential is transformed into kinetic energy. During this time the gondola accelerates. A sophisticated magnetic braking system then slows and stops the gondola near to the ground, and the gondola decelerates.

Data collection:

The initial data collected was the times during free fall, and the times during braking. This was done using a stopwatch. Obviously timing errors could have occurred because of human error and reaction time, but it...
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