Highs and lows of physics day at Six Flags

On Friday April 27, 2012 students that were in physics and calculus classes got to spend the whole day at Six Flags St. Louis for its annual physics day. North students were among groups of hundreds of students from all over the St. Louis area. Even though the park was closed to everyone but physics students, there were still long lines at many of the most popular rides.

“The lines were frustrating because the crowds were so huge,” Junior Jeremy Warden said. “The wait for Mr. Freeze was an hour and a half so I didn’t even get to ride it like I wanted to.”

The park was filled with students collecting data, making measurements, and of course, riding the numerous thrill rides. The main attraction this year was the revamped Mr. Freeze, which featured reversed trains. In other words, the normally forward-facing 72 mile-per-hour launch was now a backward-facing one. The new change seemed to be very popular among the people who were able to experience it.

“The new Mr. Freeze ride was awesome,” Senior Olivia Fincke said. “It was so much better than before because it was backwards so it seemed a lot faster and I got to wear a cool vest that was used to collect data.”

The students were required to fill out packets about the different rides in the park. The packets had various types of physics problems in them that pertained to each ride. Some students found it hard to complete their assigned ride packets because a lot of the rides were closed due to the cold weather. This led to disappointment from many students who were looking forward to riding the closed rides.

“I was upset that some of the rides were closed because that made the lines for the open rides a lot longer,” Senior Dustin Dalton said.