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Work has finally started on building the model. Last Friday, Branden allowed me and my friend to have half his k'nex pieces from the Kingda' Ka model and after a few days of sorting, we have finally started building. The first section we've decided to build is the lift hill and first drop. This section will be 12 feet tall. The lift will be run by 2 K'nex motors (one at the base and one at the top.). For the first few days, we've got a lot done. The lift base is finished and 3 feet of the vertical lift. There are a few small places that need to be fixed, but that shouldn't last long. Here's some pics of the return chain and overall coaster so far. More to come!

Great Bear at Hersheypark. It did start off on the wrong foot for me though. I was sitting in the front seat and it nearly felt like it was going to rip my legs off with all the leg cramps. But when I went in April the ride seemed perfect even when I sat in the same exact seat from the year before. The ride produces a lot of great forces in the zero-g-roll, corkscrew, and the turn before the corkscrew. A nighttime ride is awesome on this. Twister at Knoebels. It was rough a few years ago, but when I rode it a week ago it seemed "different". You were still jumping all over the place and banging into the turns, but the double helix had a lot of force. It ranks up there on my coaster count 1 or 2 places below the Phoenix.

Since I was at Knoebels for 4 days, I will divide this up into sections. Day 1: Back to the North Well it's been 2 years since I was last in the Elysburg/Danville area and not a lot has changed since. You still pass that building called St. Nicholas Hall (Santa Claus Hall) on Rt. 901 which looks nothing like the North Pole; and you still go up and down tons of hills that take a lifetime to get through. After stopping at the Cracker Barrel in Hamburg and driving for 2 hours with an RV, we finally arrive at Lake Glory Campground; about 10 minutes away from Knoebels. After my family and me set up camp, we drove to the park to ride. Even though I didn't get any pics from this visit, it still was fun. The first ride of the night was the Skyride. It's always great riding it since it's very relaxing. I'd give this an 8/10 and I rode it once that night. Next up was a ride on the Paratrooper. To me it's just your basic carnival ride, but I swear I must've had my car at 90 degrees at a few points. 8/10 and only one ride. I had to try Knoebels' famous pizza. I've never had it before and I wanted to see what the fuss was about. I was going to get the BBQ Chicken, but they didn't sell it on the weekends. So I settled for a plain slice and a Birch Beer. The pizza tasted great, but it tasted like the pizza the place down the street from my house makes. The Birch Beer was good and it somehow reminded me of a liquid Dum Dum pop. 8/10 on the food. Time to ride my favrite wooden coaster: The Phoenix. After reading through some old trip reports, I wanted to find out which was the best seat. Just about all of them said the 3rd Row, so I decided to try it out. That had to be the greatest coaster I've ridden! Just about 3/4 of the ride was all airtime. The double-up and double-down, the bunny hops, the hill on to the final turnaround and the final hill into the brake run; all of these were packed with airtime! But since everyone wanted either the front or back seat, The line was always short for that row. I ended up riding in this row all week. 10/10 and I got to ride it twice that night. To cool off, the next ride was the Super RoundUp. This is just your basic Round-Up, but this one was 2 times longer than the one I rode at a carnival a year ago. 7/10 and rode it once. Since it was almost dark at this point, I went to ride the park's other wooden coaster, The Twister. There's something different with this ride since I rode it 2 years ago, but I can't put my finger on it. It is still a tad rough and a bit jerky around the turns, but it seems more enjoyable. The first drop is still great and the double helix is still powerful, but if that bunny hill before the tunnel wasn't banked, that could provide some airtime. 9/10 and rode it once that night. After my Twister ride, I went back over to ride The Phoenix in the dark and then rode the Pioneer Train. Always get a chance to ride this in the dark, it's awesome. When you're far back in the forest, you hardly see any lights (execpt for the one on the train). 8/10 and rode it once. Since by this time tthe park was about ready to close, I decided to finish off the night with the Auto Skooters. They are still great with all those hard hits and drive great (maybe that's because I have my driver's permit?). 9/10 and rode it twice. Next up is Day 2 with a bunch of Knoebels and Flying Turns pictures, but here's a preview. Stay Tuned for more coming soon!

I just got back from the park today. Not much has been going on with it. It seems like one train is sitting in the station, a second train of cars are lined up on the platform off the track, and a bunch of car pieces are sitting behind the coaster. To me, it seems like the station and queue line still need a lot of work. I really doubt that this won't open until at least October. If not, then next year for sure. I do have to admit it did look like an impressive structure, but right now it just seems like a lawn ornament to the park to me. Stay tuned for a full trip report with Flying Turns photos!

Hey Big Mike, when were you at the park? I was there on Sunday and Monday. Great TR!

I just recently got back from Knoebels and I've heard a lot of stupid comments. Here's the biggest one that stuck out to me. A kid who was around 7 years old and his father were waiting in line for the Twister behind me at night. The kid said to his father, "I think I just saw lightning", while pointing towards the direction where the ride takes your picture. I was laughing a little bit and then told them that it's just the flash for the ride photo. *Tsh* The GP these days....

It's kind of sad when someone in their 20's or 30's doesn't even know how to type up a post using spelling and grammar. Plus you also work with a newspaper!

Why didnt you just post the article because that site charges to register which is the dumbest thing i have heard. Does all news paper websites in PA suck? Its very easy to copy and paste...duh! What's your problem? Complaining on your first post isn't a good move to make for your site image. I will be at the park Sunday to Thursday on and off. Expect a very detailed TR with tons of photos when I get back. Who knows? I may include some kind of testing video!

What?! Big Mike didn't check out Waverider? You really missed out on that show. lol Great TR and keep up the good work!

Darn! I'm late! lol Looks like you guys had a lot of fun and that layout looks something packed full of airtime. I wonder if it could be compared to the Phoenix?

I'd like to see what the park looks like from the inside. If MegaZeph wasn't salvagable, then track sections would probably be collapsing by now.

Isn't the point of camping to get away from electricity and power!?!? I don't see how it would be a big deal. Although, I refuse to camp so what do I know! Not really. Most people use RV's. I wonder what happens during "cautionary mode"?

They were yellow in 2005, but they changed them to black and I think the single rider line is optional. I never use it and I always ride alone.

^Ok. What we will do is just get new SS cars and spraypaint them silver. Even though the other coaster project is cancelled, the Fahrenheit Project is still going to be built. All the k'nex used in the Kingda' Ka coaster will be sold for Branden to pay for college. But Ben and I may still need to use some of those pieces (track pieces etc.) for Fahrenheit, but we're going to talk that over with him. Here's what we plan to do to get this coaster built: -We will not fully rely on k'nex or money donations for this model. We believe that we've asked a little too much on the last K'nex model and don't want to burden the public. We will still accept donations though if people are willing to do that. -The coaster will still be around 10 feet tall. We plan on building a 10 foot test model and trying out different support patterns to see which would work best. And to add more support we plan on attaching metal rods to it to make the coaster sturdier. We plan on starting to build the test model soon. The 10 feet might be shortened depending on hown many pieces we have. I'd like to finish this up by saying that the goal for this coaster is not to break any records or get a lot of press coverage for this. The goal for this coaster is to have fun and enjoy building it.

Here is some news (good or bad, you decide). Branden has decided to cancel this coaster project. Since he is going to be going to college in a week or two he won't have enough time to get work done on it. He also needs the money too for it, so this is what he is going to do. He is going to sell the k'nex he has, BUT! There is some good news coming out of this. The K'nex Fahrenheit coaster is still on! Ben and I are still going to build it and have it ready in a year for next year's Community Days. More info in the Fahrenheit Project thread.

We have already established ourselves. HPCrazy.com has been around for over 4 years now. But Matt became too busy to update the site. So now I'm helping him get it up and running and we have put a lot of our time into it and money and now we also have partners (hpbuzz and hersheypark101.com) that may merge with us to make it bigger. And when I mean professional, I mean a clean, well-updated, with the latest news and photos kind of website. Not the kind of site that just starts out with all the "bells and whistles", but with the one that starts with the basics. The perks are just what we are doing on our spare time and money.

Thanks to Brandon (BRTeller) we may have the site up soon and to celebrate our grand opening Matt and me are planning a few perks for you guys. The first one are site T-shirts! These won't be the most professionally made though (t-shirt transfer and ironed on. Over time depending on how popular the shirts would be we could get people to do this for us. Don't expect these T-shirts to be for sale anytime soon though because the next perk would involve this. The second perk is top-secret, but all will be known soon.... Here's the modified logo that will be on the t-shirts. The color for it will be steel grey. More news and site updates as they come!

This is to the exact scale of the SS car and the reason why we're thinking of making our own custom cars is to make replacing the parts easier and not having to go through tons of SS cars. We've had several with the last coaster, but we totalled all of them but one, but that one is damaged (it's sitting right in front of me in two pieces). I still think we are going to build this coaster instead of the other one since this one is more possible to build than the other one.

A quote from someone who worked at the park. Fingers don't magically disappear and I doubt it would've rolled off the platform since the ride was probably immediately shut down. I also don't think these ride would have the power to do this unless you really tried and put your hand where the lapbar hinges are. The only way you could probably get hurt form one of these rides is if the bucket became unattactched from the cable or if someone purposely jumped out of the car. Also a finger doesn't have two knuckles

^He ment the entrance to the park back to Lightning Racer. I guess it could. At least Fahrenheit is better looking than Western Chute Out.

I still need to ride Fahrenheit. I may be lucky to take a trip up and ride it in the middle of August and decide for myself. If not then, in October I will.

It won't work out and here's why. I was looking in one of my coaster books and it a section describing Superman The Escape and why it's opening was delayed. It said this: Powerful magnets aren't going to cut it. You can have the most powerful ones and the cars still wouldn't move an inch. I'm sorry, but I do not support this k'nex design. The ideas sound too far'fetched and impossible to do. Just because an object is scaled down, doesn't mean it will perform like the real thing. We also agreed to work on and build Fahrenheit, in fact I was talking to Ben just before he went on vacation about starting to build the lift hill and experiment with it when he gets back from vacation later this week. I was also putting a lot of hard time designing the cars to the exact measurements to the Screamin' Serpent cars for FH. I'm sorry, but I think Ben would be pretty ticked off when he finds out that you all of a sudden without our agreement plan to build a different design. You've had a lot more people liking the idea of building Fahrenheit than building this thing. I'm sorry, but that's the truth. Quote source: Roller Coasters by Robert Coker 2002 Pages 123-124

I just gotta laugh at how everyone is using Matt's drawing to show examples. I think the next plan is to expand out in front of Wildcat.

Even though it would be a strong magnet, you would still need to turn the magnetic charge on and off on the magnets. This is why I'm saying that a computer would need to do this because a human can't do it at that kind of speed.

^^Thanks Wes. I don't know Branden, it seems you might be pushing the limits with this one. A 25 foot high hill with a 15 foot tall loop doesn't really sound plausible. Hopefully it would make a little more sense on the track layout. EDIT: You are going to need computers to get the timing of the magnets to repel and attract to launch this car. Plus the scale of the track and cars from the real thing. Just because it's smaller doesn't mean it will perform the same way. On top of all this is the fact that K'nex Screamin' Serpent Coaster cars aren't built to withstand that kind of speed. We found that out with the Kingda' Ka model. I think we're really better off building Fahrenheit becuase it is an easier coaster to build. Ben and me were already thinking about starting the lift later this week. I don't really want to sound like an idiot for saying this, but I'm just telling you the facts from experience and research and I definately do not want this to end up like this year's coaster.