THE THRILL SEEKER’S GUIDE TO EDUCATION
If you’ve been searching for the fastest, the biggest, and the most enlightening
educational experience around, your quest is over!
Kentucky Kingdom provides a unique outdoor environment
for multidisciplinary educational programs.
“Educational?” you ask. How can a theme park replace the classroom?
As you loop through the air on T3 or gallop around on the Bella Musica Carousel,
you should start to see the patterns.
Whether in park operations, the color schemes used,
the selection of rides, the location of walkways, and in so many other areas,
specific patterns have been developed and used.
You and your students will be experiencing those patterns but now,
fasten your seatbelt and get ready for an exhilarating “ride” through
Kentucky Kingdom.
Acknowledgments:
Kentucky Kingdom wishes to thank the dedicated teachers and staff
of Jefferson County Public Schools who have contributed to our Education in Motion program.
Special thanks to Lee Ann Nickerson, Alexis Rich, Dotty Turnbull, and Kristen Wingfeld.
© Kentucky Kingdom, LLLP 2016
ALL LEVELS
ALL LEVELS
USING THE WORKBOOK FOR TEACHERS
We are happy to provide you with a guide
to interesting experiments and projects to
enhance your “Education in Motion” trip
to Kentucky Kingdom. Use as many as
you deem suitable for your students and
of course, feel free to alter them to fit your
students’ needs.
A. The intent of this workbook is to
show students that learning about
science and math at a theme park
adds an extra dimension - going on
rides becomes more interesting and
exciting!
B. You may want to do a sample
page from the workbook in class,
using made-up data, a day or so
before your field trip. Students will
have a chance to get familiar with the
workbook and get a sense of how to
use the pages most efficiently.
C. Choose a series of concepts and
a minimum number (3 or 4) of rides
you would like students to investigate.
Since the time spent standing in line
is directly proportional to the
popularity of a ride, suggest to your
students that they plan to use less
dramatic rides for a good portion of
their required work.
D. Assign students to lab groups of
six to ten and request that each group
be able to account for its members at
all times. In a larger group like this, no
one will feel pressured to ride, anyone
wanting to ride will likely have a
partner to ride with, and non-riders will
be able to ask the others how they
liked the ride. You’ll also need less
equipment.
E. You may want to give your
students the option to choose a ride
that’s not covered in the workbook
and to show how that ride could be
used to illustrate physics concepts.
F. When checking your students’
answers, remember that all entries
are based on actual student
measurements and observations.
Human reaction times vary and ride
speeds depend to some extent on the
ambient temperature and time of day.
G. Many teachers have found it
useful to request that their students
turn in the workbook at the end of the
day. This ensures that enough
calculations are done at the park for
the students to connect those
calculated results with the rides they
have just experienced.
ALL LEVELS
USING THE WORKBOOK FOR STUDENTS
GETTING READY!
Before your visit to Kentucky Kingdom, you may
need to collect materials and equipment and
bring them with you to the park. Some of the
activities require that lab or vocabulary work be
done at school before you come to the park.
Completing these tasks before your trip will allow
you to make better use of your time at Kentucky
Kingdom and should add to your enjoyment of
the day.
REMEMBER:
1. You are going to Kentucky Kingdom to
demonstrate your understanding of math,
physics, and science by gathering data and
applying basic concepts to different rides and
situations.
2. You will need to record the data you collect.
You are expected to explain your answers. If
you feel a question may have more than one
meaning, state your interpretation of the
question and then answer it.
3. You are expected to obey all park rules and
any directions given by the park’s staff. Do
not endanger your safety or that of others.
4. Objects dropped from rides can hurt people.
You are not allowed to bring loose objects,
such as sunglasses, cell phones, cameras,
etc., on the rides.
5. It is not required that you ride any of the
rides. Yet we hope you will want to get some
first-hand experience by riding at least some
of them!
6. It’s a good idea to plan ahead! Review the
list of any equipment or supplies you will
need to bring with you to the park. Determine
the data to be collected before going on the
ride, write down the information you gather,
and don’t lose it!
7. Your teacher will give you your admission
ticket. We recommend that everyone in your
group gather at a specific place (suggest the
fountain at the entrance) before leaving the
park. Great opportunity to take a class photo!
8. Check with your teacher about lunch
arrangements.
9. Make sure you understand the arrangements
for returning home before you get off your
bus to enter the park. Make sure you can
recognize your bus!
EQUIPMENT YOU MAY NEED TO
BRING TO THE PARK:
 Calculator.
 Stopwatch. There are many inexpensive
ones available and often students have a
watch with a stopwatch mode. Accuracy to
one-tenth of a second is sufficient.
 Pens and pencils.
 Colored pencils, crayons, or markers.
 Yardstick or measuring tape.
 Paper (plain, graph, and/or drawing).
ALL LEVELS
SPEAKING THE
LANGUAGE OF PHYSICS
To name and describe your observations, you
must be able to speak the language of physics.
Try to use each of these words at least twice while
riding or watching the rides.
Acceleration - How fast speed and/or direction change.
Action Force - One of the pair of forces described in Newton’s
third law.
Air Resistance - Force of air pushing against a moving object.
Apparent Weightlessness - The feeling of weightlessness
that one has when falling toward the earth. (True
weightlessness, however, requires that an object be far out in
space, where gravitational forces are negligible.)
Centripetal Force - A push or pull that makes an object move
in a curved path. Its direction is toward the center of the object’s
curved path.
Elapsed Time - The time that has passed, or elapsed, since
the beginning of the time measurement.
Elastic Collision - A collision in which colliding objects
rebound without lasting deformation or the generation of heat.
Energy - The property of an object or system that enables it to
do work; measured in joules.
Equilibrium - A state of balance between opposing forces or
effects.
Force - Any sort of push or pull.
Free Fall - Motion under the influence of the gravitational force
only.
Friction - A force from surrounding material that pushes or
pulls on objects when you try to move them. Friction causes
roller coasters to slow down. Friction usually results from the
rubbing of one surface against another and produces heat as
a result. Air resistance is one kind of friction.
Gravitational Potential Energy - The amount of energy of an
object in a position above the surface of the earth. The higher
an object is, the greater the gravitational potential energy it has
relative to the earth’s surface.
G-Force - One inglr equals the gravitational pull at the surface
of the earth. A g-force of 2 g’s means a force acting on an
object that is equal to two times the object’s weight.
(Acceleration of gravity - 9.8 m/s 2 (-10 m/s 2) or (-32 f/s 2).
Inertia - The tendency of matter to remain at rest or move at a
constant speed in a straight line.
Jerk - Rate of change of acceleration, named because you
notice this as a feeling of being jerked in the direction of the
change.
Kinetic Energy - The energy of motion. The faster you go, the
more kinetic energy you have. An object cannot speed up
unless it gets energy from something that pushes or pulls it
through some distance. Roller coasters get kinetic energy from
gravitational potential energy.
A moving object cannot slow down unless its kinetic energy is
changed into some other kind of energy. In roller coasters,
kinetic energy changes into gravitational potential energy and
into heat. The total of the kinetic energy and gravitational
potential energy in a coaster tends to remain the same. Brakes
change kinetic energy into heat.
Law of Conservation of Energy - The statement that energy
cannot be created or destroyed; it may be transformed from
one form to another, but the total amount of energy never
changes.
Mass - A kind of moving inertia that tends to keep moving
objects going in the same direction. Momentum is the mass of
a body multiplied by its velocity. Momentum (mass x velocity)
tends to remain the same.
Momentum - The product of the mass and the velocity of an
object. Has direction as well as size.
Parabola - The shape of the curved path of a ball as it is tossed
from one person to another. Roller coaster hills have this
shape.
Potential Energy - Energy that is stored and held in readiness
by an object by virtue of its position. With its energy in this
stored state, it has the potential for doing work.
Power - The rate at which work is done, which equals the
amount of work done divided by the amount of time during
which the work is done. This is measured in watts.
Reaction Force - The force that is equal in strength and
opposite in direction to the action force and that acts on
whatever is exerting the action force.
Revolutions - Motion in which an object turns about an axis
outside the object.
Rotation - The spinning motion that occurs when an object
moves about an axis that is located within the object.
Rotational Speed - The number of rotations or revolutions per
unit of time, often measured per second or minute.
Rotational Velocity - Rotational speed, together with a
direction of rotation or revolution.
Speed - How fast something is moving (i.e., the distance
moved per unit of time).
Velocity - The speed of an object in a particular direction.
Weight - The force on a body of matter due to the gravitational
attraction of another body. (That other body is often the earth.)
ALL LEVELS
RIDE SPECIFICATIONS
LIGHTNING RUN
ROLLER SKATER
Opening Date: 2014
Height: 100 feet
Length: 2,500 feet
Top Speed: 55 mph
Designer/Manufacturer: Chance Rides
Rider Requirements: Minimum of 48” tall
Ride Capacity: 2 trains, 20 passengers per train
Opening Date: 1994
Height: 28 feet
Length: 679 feet
Designer/Manufacturer: Vekoma International
Rider Requirements: Minimum of 56” tall to ride alone; 36”
tall and up may ride with a supervising companion*
Ride Capacity: 8 cars, 2 passengers per car
FEARFALL
T3
Opening Date: 2014
Tower Height: 131 feet
Lift Speed: 0.7 mph (upward)
Drop Speed: 47 mph (downward)
Designer/Manufacturer: A.R.M. Inc.
Rider Requirements: Minimum of 48” tall; maximum of 300
pounds
Ride Capacity: 12 passengers
Opening Date: 2015
Height: 98 feet
Length: 2,170 feet
Top Speed: 60+ mph
Designer/Manufacturer: Vekoma International
Rider Requirements: Minimum of 52” tall
Ride Capacity: 2 trains, 14 passengers per train
BELLA MUSICA CAROUSEL
Opening Date: 1994
Height: 30 feet
Diameter: 52 feet, 6 inches
Designer/Manufacturer: Wood Design Amusement Rides
Rider Requirements: Minimum of 36” tall to ride alone;
under 36” tall may ride with a supervising companion*;
over 250 pounds must ride in gondola
Ride Capacity: 66 seats
MILE HIGH FALLS
Opening Date: 1994
Height: 85 feet
Trough Length: Approximately 880 feet
Top Speed: 48 mph
Designer/Manufacturer: O.D. Hopkins
Rider Requirements: Minimum of 42” tall to ride alone;
36” tall and up may ride with a supervising companion*
Ride Capacity: 2 boats, 20 passengers per boat
THUNDER RUN
Opening Date: 1990
Height: 89 feet
Length: 2,850 feet
Top Speed: 53 mph
Designer/Manufacturer: Dinn Corp.
Rider Requirements: Minimum of 48” tall
Ride Capacity: 1 train, 20 passengers per train
ENTERPRISE
Opening Date: 2015
Height: 40 feet
Ride Speed: 12 rpm
Designer/Manufacturer: HUSS Maschinenfabrik
Rider Requirements: Minimum of 54” tall; maximum of 300
pounds
Ride Capacity: 20 gondolas, 2 passengers per gondola
CYCLOS
Opening Date: 2015
Height: 60 feet
Rotation Speed: 12 rpm
Manufacturer: Zamperla
Rider Requirements: Minimum of 42” tall; maximum of 300
pounds
Ride Capacity: 16
SKYCATCHER
Opening Date: 2015
Height: 130 feet
Rotation Speed: 10 rpm
Manufacturer: A.R.M. Inc.
Rider Requirements: Minimum of 48” tall; maximum of 340
pounds per swing/300 pounds per passenger
Ride Capacity: 12 swings with 2 passengers per swing
*Supervising companion meets all rider requirements,
is at least 14
ALL LEVELS
safety instructions.
FUN STUFF ABOUT RIDES!
The first roller coasters were ice slides serving as wintertime amusements in Russian
villages and towns, particularly St. Petersburg, during the 15th and 16th centuries. In the
late 19th century, LaMarcus Adna Thompson became known as “The Father of the
Gravity Ride.” Although he did not invent the roller coaster, he built the Switchback
Railway at Coney Island in Brooklyn, New York, which opened on June 13, 1884. Mr.
Thompson took a great interest in roller coasters and developed and patented many
features of the modern coaster.
ROLLER SKATER
The Roller Skater is a family roller coaster introduced at Kentucky Kingdom in 1994, the
fourth coaster to be introduced at the park over a period of only five years. Manufactured
by Vekoma International of the Netherlands, it’s a coaster that people of all ages can
enjoy.
The Roller Skater has a 28-foot hill and its track is 679 feet long. Its unusual location
over a small ravine was chosen to maximize its thrill factor. Themed by Kentucky
Kingdom Construction Inc., the coaster’s bright primary colors were chosen both for their
visual impact and their similarity to the colors so often found in a child’s toy box.
THUNDER RUN
Thunder Run, with its six tons of nails, 30,000 bolts, and 250,000 board feet of track,
was designed by Curtis Summers and George Fetterman and manufactured in 1990 by
the Dinn Corporation, which also constructed Cedar Point’s “Mean Streak,” “Timber
Wolf” at Worlds of Fun, and Six Flags Over Georgia’s “Georgia Cyclone.” Thunder Run
consistently ranks among the top ten wooden coasters in nationwide polls.
LIGHTNING RUN
Ranked among the top 25 steel coasters in the world, Lightning Run begins with a
breathtaking 100-foot, 80-degree drop and ends with three gravity-defying
camelback hills. This ten-story coaster thrills riders with negative airtime, an ultrasmooth ride, and nonstop twists and turns.
Lightning Run is the first steel coaster of its kind. Manufactured by Chance Rides,
it is the only Hyper GT-X coaster operating in the world.
T3 - TERROR TO THE 3rd POWER
Kentucky Kingdom’s T3 (“Terror to the Third Power”), a suspended looping coaster
designed and manufactured by Vekoma International of the Netherlands, offers high-tech
thrills. Riders are suspended from an inverted track and make several complete 360degree loops.
Although the concept for a suspended coaster, with the train hanging beneath the track
and swinging its riders from side to side while negotiating steep drops and sharp turns,
has existed since the early 1980’s, the coaster itself was not built and introduced at a
theme park until 1992. The original design called for upside-down inversions, but this
idea never made it past the design phase. The coaster’s side-to-side swinging action
made inversions infeasible because of the possibility that the train could fall back when
inverted if it negotiated a full 360-degree loop too slowly.
In 1992, a Swiss coaster design team took the concept of the suspended coaster one
step further. In the new twist they developed, the train hangs from the track and yet hugs
it rigidly, enabling it to maneuver through full 360-degree loops. T3 is the third generation
of this type of ride. Rather than the four-across seating that had been standard on this
type of coaster, T3 seats only two across, providing more thrills for its riders, who sit in
chairs similar to chair lifts, with their feet dangling.
T3 was the very first of the new generation of suspended looping coasters to debut in
North America. The ride features a 98-foot lift hill, a ten-story drop, and five full inversions
along its track length of 2,170 feet. Two trains with seven coaches are able to operate
simultaneously, allowing well over 1,000 guests per hour to enjoy the ride.
GIANT WHEEL
The 15-story Giant Wheel boasts 10,290 light bulbs. Each of its 40 gondolas carries 6
riders, or 1,050 pounds, for a total capacity of 42,000 pounds.
The Giant Wheel is, of course, an example of a Ferris wheel. When the promoters of
Chicago’s 1893 World Exposition were searching for an engineering marvel to rival the
Eiffel Tower, which was built for the 1889 Paris World’s Fair, George Ferris, a civil
engineer and bridge builder, proposed a 264-foot-tall pleasure wheel. Towering above
the midway, the completed wheel had 36 gondolas, each 24 feet long, and carried up to
2,160 passengers on a ride consisting of two complete revolutions lasting 20 minutes
apiece. George Ferris is the only amusement ride designer whose ride bears his name.
FEARFALL
FearFALL, manufactured by A.R.M. Inc., rises to a height of 128 feet and treats its riders
to a 2.5-second, 60-foot free fall, reaching a top speed of close to 50 miles per hour.
FearFALL is the second generation of the free fall ride and Kentucky Kingdom was the
first park in the world to get this prototype. Passengers sit in open-air cars, their feet
dangling, and are pulled to the top of the tower in a mere sixty seconds. Following a brief
pause at the top, riders experience a breathtaking free-falling plunge back down to ground
level.
ALL LEVELS
BELLA MUSICA
Kentucky Kingdom’s Bella Musica Carousel, made in Holland and designed as a
celebration of the world’s most classic carousels, is a one-of–a-kind ride. Each wooden
figure on the carousel is hand carved, a process that takes about 100 hours per figure,
and the carousel horses have real horsehair tails. The figures duplicate the designs of
famous artisans from various countries, including the U.S., France, Germany, and
Holland. All of the glass pieces on the ride are hand-cut and the floor boards are made
from the unusual Bangkirai wood. Bella Musica is 52-1/2 feet wide and 30 feet high and
weighs more than 24 tons.
SKYCATCHER
This tall and graceful ride, manufactured by A.R.M. Inc., gives riders a terrific view of
Kentucky Kingdom, Hurricane Bay, and the Louisville skyline from swings 130 feet in the
air. It can carry up to 24 riders at a time.
CYCLOS
Cyclos is the ultimate summertime twist! Riders sit on a huge rotating disc attached to a
swinging pendulum. The pendulum begins with small swings back and forth, but
gradually swings its riders higher and higher, ultimately taking them through a full 360degree loop. Manufactured by Zamperla, this hair-raising ride towers 60 feet tall and
carries 16 passengers at a time.
ALL LEVELS
1.
2.
3.
A.
B.
C.
ALL LEVELS
ALL LEVELS
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
ALL LEVELS
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
ALL LEVELS
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
ALL LEVELS
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
1.
2.
3.
4.
ALL LEVELS
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
1.
2.
ALL LEVELS
1.
2.
3.
1.
2.
ALL LEVELS
1.
2.
3.
ALL LEVELS
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Giant Wheel
Fifteen stories
Climbing, soaring, floating
Gondola sailing through the air
Ferris Wheel
1.
2.
ALL LEVELS
Paper
Colored Pencils or markers
Notebook
1.
2.
3.
1.
2.
ALL LEVELS
1.
2.
ALL LEVELS
1.
2.
3.
1.
2.
3.
ALL LEVELS
1.
2.
3.
1.
2.
ALL LEVELS