School Gyms and Roller Coasters

Speaking of all the crazy things you can use your school gym for, what is the craziest idea you've ever had? Well, besides Ozzy Osborn-themed graduations or tap dancing championships? How about a roller coaster. Yes, a roller coaster!

Look at this beauty. Here's what Neatorama Blog says:

Students at the Royal Oak Intermediate School in Covina, California built this 1/4 scale roller coaster in their gym.

Twenty-four feet tall at its highest point and occupying 10,000 square feet, the fully-functional ride towers over the 135 eighth-graders who are its designers, builders and decorators. Students and four teachers have spent thousands of hours measuring, sawing, constructing, painting and decorating the wooden structure over the last three weeks.

Painted mostly black and decorated with a solar system theme - the planets, the sun, Earth’s moon, Orion’s Nebula, the asteroid belt and a black hole - the roller coaster includes three lifts and drops, an enormous figure eight and a 360-degree loop. The track is 400 feet long, and students estimate that the car will reach a top speed of 35 mph coming down the final and tallest drop.

It's nice to see these folks are using gym floor covers! Makes sense to protect the floor from whatever falls from this roller coaster. Something tells me it wasn't built for humans. This construction cannot be solid without some alterations to their gym floor. Metal polls need to be secured, otherwise, it's not safe at all. My bet would be this roller coaster was intended as an installation in itself or as a school project track for tiny cars, dolls or little robots. Your thoughts?

Lisa