Why do new coasters always have bugs?

Why do new coasters always have bugs? Granted I know they are new coasters and each one isn't perfect, but what are these 'bugs' exactly?

What is a typical 'bug' that happens on a new coaster, and how do they get fixed?

These are highly expensive machines that have so much technology in them it is mind boggling...surely things have to be worked out before everything can run smoothly. A lot of new coasters will have its safety system stop the ride often because computer systems are getting SO safe now that even the smallest hint of something that COULD go wrong will shut down the ride.

Yeah, I realize that its usually a computer glitch, damn I should've made my first one more specific...

So then how do they make the computer realize that that 'smallest hint' is normal?

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O Canada, MY home and native land, True patriot love, in all our sons command. With Glowing hearts, we see thee rise, the true north strong and free. O Canada we stand on guard for thee...

They program to stop for the smallest hint. It is an effort to make roller coasters even more safe. Once the ride has been open awhile, the smallest bugs no longer occur. The reason newer coasters have bugs is because all coasters need to be tested and things need to be changed before they run perfectly. They can't just design something on a computer program and expect it to run without any problems. Once a few different rides of the same type have been made, most of the glitches are out. It is just like computer software. XP still has some bugs, but they are working them out, and soon it will be fixed.

Never be the first one on the block to run new software unless you like being a guinea pig...like when Netscape 6.0 came out, we had to run it on one computer to test it against our software. That machine was temporarily "hosed", if you'll pardon the jargon...
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Florida needs an Intamin and/or CCI soon...PLEASE!
Son of Drop Zone - PKI CoasterCamp I Champions!!!

WARNING: ENGINEERING RANT

The main reason new styles of coasters have a few bugs is this....

All coasters are designed and modeled on computers first, before getting anywhere near construction. No matter how hard you try, no matter how good your math or your computer programs or your fabrication skills are, there is NO POSSIBLE WAY to computer model ALL sources of variation.

To take EVERYTRHING into account, you would have to model wind currents, steel changes due to temprature, manufacturing variation, sun load, bearing friction, etc..... I'm sure that all of the manufacturers do a large amount of this detail, but you just can't get it all.

Sometimes in engineering design, you have to use the dreaded ASSUMPTION, based on your previous knowledge and experience. It's the companies that do this best that are the ones that make the best rides.

To sum it up, all coasters are made using computer models. And as our chief engineer is fond of saying, "ALL models are WRONG. Some are useful.". The best engineers are the ones that can tell the difference.

Later,
EV
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"Just remember, wherever you go, there you are." - Buckaroo Banzai

This is why they came up with the word PROTOTYPE.

I thought it was just because it took a few days for the bug repellant in the paint to take effect...
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If the shoe fits, find another one.

Simply because that which works perfectly on paper seldom is so perfect once rendered in steel....!

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Amen to that. I have yet to see one built without a problem or downtime.

Remember of course that coasters are not built on an assembly. The bugs are not just computer glitches. Forces can be difficult to predict which can result in things breaking. Also, there are many safety switches that must be closed and getting all of them set just right can be difficult. Batwing requires 88 safeties to be satisfied before a train can leave the station. Even at the end of last season, the operators were still having to shake restraints to get contacts to make so they could dispatch a train.

Why are you stupid?

I think even old coasters have bugs. ;)
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Have you ever considered that maybe it's not the park that's the problem, but YOU?

P>ONT face=Verdana size=2>You guys told me everything I already knew, perhaps I just can't get my question across in words you understand?BR>New question: How do they tell the computer not to shut off the coaster when the smallest hint of error occurs?BR>because obviously if a leaf lands on the track, they can't allow the coaster to shut off! (example of a small hint that could occur on an opening day)BR>Understand the question?BR>/P>

*** This post was edited by coo man chu on 2/16/2002. ***

coo man chu said:
P>ONT face=Verdana size=2>You guys told me everything I already knew, perhaps I just can't get my question across in words you understand?BR>New question: How do they tell the computer not to shut off the coaster when the smallest hint of error occurs?BR>because obviously if a leaf lands on the track, they can't allow the coaster to shut off! (example of a small hint that could occur on an opening day)BR>Understand the question?BR>/P>
*** This post was edited by coo man chu on 2/16/2002. ***

Ah, but on some coasters if a leaf landed on the track the computer system WOULD shut the ride down....it's called photo eyes. If anything cross it's line of sight, then the computer system will think there is another train occupying that block and that's all it needs. I've seen people's bandana's fall off and land in between a pair of photo eyes and have that shut down a ride because it crossed that line of sight....and you can't tell a computer not to recognize any smallest bit of errors, they are designed to be super safe, and if we're going to have to experience some computer shutdowns to be safe, then so be it...

Jim Fisher said Batwing has 88 safeties before a train can be dispatched. That seems big but it's actually a lot more.

The Cincinnati Enquirer said a while back that SOB had somewhere around 207 sensors, and two seperate computers monitoring these sensors. That makes it very safe, but if only one sensor goes bad, the whole ride shuts down. Engineers also don't really know how the coasters is going to act untill its up and running. Look at the 2nd hill on SOB. There is no way that the engineers would have made that turn to be soo painful. It looked good on the computer screen, but in real life, that's a different story.
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Try Flight of Fear version 2.0: It's great!

LTLWcbYbe:

88 is what they said for Extreme Rides 2002. Now that's for each train to be dispatched. It wuold be more if you count all 3 trains.

Sensors can be tricky business. For example, one time in 2000 at SFNE, S:RoS was having frequent sensor problems. It was dusk in August. Since it was cooling down the dust was settling (literally) and it tripped the sensor to believe that the ascending train on the lift hill was going to run into an object. So, for about 10 trips the train stopped in the same place every time after they reset the system. Then, they had to test each train 2 times. It just kept happening. Finally, they shut the ride down at 9:45 b/c it just kept doing the same thing. There was almost a riot in the line and we all got passes to "Come Back and visit for $10" This was no use to me since I am a season passholder. In conclusion, I left the park with no ride on S:RoS and I was not very happy after waiting 1 hr. and 15 mins. to just leave the line almost empty handed. I haven't seen it happen again since.

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Another reason for apparent bugs is that roller coasters ar deigned to be fault in-tolerant. For example, a modern car has about the same number of sensors as a simple roller coaster. Some are trivial, some are not. The rollercaoster and the car both have redundant computer systems. Cars are designed to be fault tolerant. When a sensor in a car glitches, the car usually just throws the value out and keeps chugging along. If the glitch is bad enough to knock out one computer system or to amke the computer run a backup program, you get the "check engine" light. No big deal, the other computer is handling it. In a rollercoaster the computers are always both running, and if they don't agree the coaster gets shut down. Same for a sensor glitch, or a bad sensor or what have you. Misalignment will do wonders for creating bugs when you're running redundant sensors. It's safer, but it also means that the testing phase is much longer and more glitches show up during that interval.