How to Make a Roller Coaster Model That Moves

Design your roller coaster. Roller coasters can be designed in a variety of shapes and sizes. Decide whether you'd like to build a straight-line roller coaster or one that loops back to the starting gate. If you are doing a coaster that loops back to the starting gate, sketch the footprint of your track on a piece of paper, to follow as a general plan.

Prepare your track. Use a pair of utility scissors to cut the clear tubing in half, lengthwise. This will leave you with two pieces of half-circle tubing.

Lay out the base of your roller coaster. Cut the dimensional lumber to approximate the shape of the footprint sketch you drew. The pieces of wood should be no more than four inches apart from one to the next.

To create the last hill, drill a hole in the base wood, just large enough so that a dowel fits snugly, in the location where you'd like the bottom of the drop after the hill. Cut a length of dowel to the height of this drop and insert it into the base. Repeat for the hill, drilling the hole at the top of where you'd like the hill. Glue the tubing to the tips of the dowels, leaving enough tubing after the drop to go up to your starting gate, if your coaster is a closed loop.

To create the hill immediately preceding the last hill, test your idea for this hill first. Have an assistant help you hold the tube at the bottom of the drop and the anticipated top of the next hill, and test-roll the marble down the tube, to ensure you have enough height to climb to the top of the next hill. Once you have these heights, drill holes in the appropriate places in the base, cut dowels to length, and glue the tubing to the dowels.

Repeat for the remainder of the hills. Repeat the process for testing and creating hills until you get to your starting hill, which is often the tallest. Connect the tail piece, trimming where necessary, to the starting hill.

Create the starting gate by making four slits in the plastic tubing, just past the top of the starting hill, where your marble will be placed to start. Cut two 1-inch by 1-inch squares of cardstock and insert into these slits to prevent the marble from rolling down the roller coaster until you are ready. Place the marble in the gate, remove the lower piece of cardstock and watch your roller coaster in action.