Popular Mechanics presents - The Backyard Genius Awards

Many of you are familiar with this already but the latest Popular Mechanics has a nice little story (with photos) of Jeremy Reid's backyard roller coaster. Reid works for S&S Arrow now.

Congrats on your Award Jeremy!

story

YouTube

Do they sell kits for this at home depot? I have enough grass to set one up on. Very cool!

I've seen that one on TV before, and I think the layout is actually quite nice.

That must be the coaster that my nephew saw. He has been bugging my father-in-law non-stop to take him to Home Depot and help him build one.

No trees, no tunnel or trench and no theme?

No thanks :)

The article mention 1 minute after the drop, but the video was only 27 seconds long. :)

jive2 said:
No trees, no tunnel or trench and no theme?

No thanks :)

The car probably doesn't have speakers either.

And there are no fire cannons blowing over the track that I can tell from the video. ;)

I plainly spotted a tree in the infield. Just give it time. Charm requires patience. ;)

I didn't see a separate line for Fast Pass, which means he probably extends the loading time while people enter from the exit area. Fail. On the plus side, no mandatory lockers.

Stupid corporate fields, always ripping out the charm.

When's the next ACE event to this guy's yard?

Next year he is getting a tower swing.

In typical Lord Gonchar style I found this article in the latest Popular Mechanics to be the one that's more up my alley:

Science of Waiting In Line

Among the things I learned:

1. There is now an equation for predicting line behavior.

2. There's actually a monthly journal called Queueing Systems: Theory and Applications that various industry types read.

3. There's a dude at MIT with the title of Queueing Theorist (which is cool enough on its own) that says, "There's no such thing as the perfect line, the trick is to convince people they're being treated fairly."

Looks like us Buzzers may be smarter than we think. ;)

But yeah, the backyard coaster is cool too, I suppose.

At first I thought his title was Queueing Therapist. You know, to console people who have to wait an extra train while Q-botters jump ahead. :)

I saw that article while on Google news the other day, Gonch. It didn't say too much that we haven't heard before here on CoasterBuzz, so I didn't go through with bringing it up here. Also, it was just too short of an article, and not very informative. ;)

Or maybe I was going to save it for our next q-bot debate. lol

The article did say something about the scent of lavender... Have we mentioned that here yet? Just think of the fresh-smelling queues!

Congratulations to Mr. Reid!

AFAIK, even 10 years later this is still the only "personal" wooden coaster that adults can ride...and it looks like a LOT of fun! :)

Personally, I thought the queue article was pretty bad. It never did say "how" to choose the shortest line. And even though it tells us that many companies don't even know the kindergarten basics, it doesn't tell the reader what they are. Is it some kind of state secret? Or do you have to subscribe to Queues R Us or whatever that journal is called to find out?

On the plus side, I learned there is a word to describe the time delay when a person collects their items after paying at the checkout. So now the term WTF can also mean "Who's the Faffer?"

It takes me a long time to faf, especially now that I'm getting older.

Edited to add - :)