Calculator Programs For Coasters

[jimths08]

Well, here they are. I've been working on them off and on for about 2 months now. If your having trouble getting them to work properly or something of the sort, PM/Email/IM me and we'll work it out.

 

Credit:

Jimmy-building and programming

John-walking me through glitches

Oscar-reversing the formula

Dirk-formulas (I found them on his site)

 

 

 

 

 

Calculator Programs for Coasters

 

The Basics

 

 

 

Okay, so here we are with no lives. Soooo, what more to do than make something you’ll never use. For the next 30 minutes or so, were going to be building programs in graphing calculators. Though it’s not tested, these programs should work on most Texas Instruments calculators. I personally have a TI-83. Most people in school now have a TI-83Plus which will work as well. The models I’m going to walk you through are the TI-83, and TI-83Plus. If you have a different model, PM or IM me and I’ll try to help you out.

 

 

 

Building the Beast

 

 

 

Now that you know how to access your programs area, we’ll being making our first program. During this first program, I’ll describe each and every detail so that you understand how it works and what each part does.

 

 

 

1: turn on your calculator and press the PRGM button

 

 

 

2: using your directional pad, press the ‘right’ button 2 times until ‘new’ is highlighted

 

 

 

3: press ‘enter’ and name the program ‘CSTRDROP’ by typing in each letter with the green super-scripts above most of the buttons. for example, to get CSTR, press ‘PRGM’ then ‘LN’, ‘4’, and ‘*’ as in multiply.

 

 

 

4: once you get it named it will take you too a screen that says PROGRAM: CSTRDROP

 

:

 

5: now I’m giving you an idea of what the end process will look like. here goes,

 

Disp “SOLVE FOR”

 

Disp “1 SPEED:”

 

Disp “2 HEIGHT:”

 

Input “”,A

 

If A=1

 

Goto 1

 

If A=2

 

Goto 2

 

Lbl 1

 

Input “DROP HEIGHT:”,L

 

‘square root of’ ((H*.3048*9.81/.5))*2.2369363*.864+L=V

 

Disp “DROP SPEED IS:”,V

 

Stop

 

Lbl 2

 

Input “DESIRED SPEED:”,v

 

Input “LIFT SPEED:”,L

 

(((V/2.2369363)2 *.5/9.81)+L)*3.2808=H

 

Disp “HEIGHT IS”,H

 

looks pretty sickly doesn’t it? its not.

 

 

 

6: you can see the first thing we need is a ‘Disp’ command. ‘Disp stands for display and enables what-ever you put in parenthesis to be seen when you run the program. Those of you familiar with HTML will understand this a bit better but I’m telling it as if you all are dumb and idiots.

 

 

 

7: make sure you’re still in the program called CSTRDROP (your calculator probably shut off while I was jabbering) and press ‘PRGM’. what comes up is a list of words which we’ll use later. press the ‘right’ button once till you see that ‘I/O’ is highlighted. now press ‘3’. it takes you back to the PRGM screen with ‘Disp’ shown. now we can start typing.

 

 

 

8: what you put here really doesn’t matter since it doesn’t interfere with the calculations of the formula, you could be “TRIGONOMETRY SUCKS” for all I care, but every time you run the program, that will pop up on your screen. whether or not your moma will like seeing that when you show her this, is your own risk that I don’t take blame for. I would type “SOLVE FOR” since that tells you your going to try and solve for something. one trick you need to learn, if you press ‘2nd’ and then ‘ALPHA’. with the 83Plus you can hit ‘ALPHA’ twice to make it lowercase.

 

 

 

9: now press ‘ENTER’ which will take you to the next line. press ‘PRGM’ and hit the ‘right’ button once, then press ‘3’ to get ‘Disp’ again.

 

 

 

10: type ”1 SPEED:” and make sure you have the quotations.

 

 

 

11: press ‘ENTER’ and get another ‘Disp’. on this one type “2 HEIGHT:”.

 

 

 

12: now were going to press ‘PRGM’ and the ‘right’ (I’m going to call it > for now on) button and make sure ‘1:’ is highlighted. press ‘ENTER’. ‘Input’ shows up in the PRGM area, now type “”,A. its odd yea, but it tells the calculator that the number you push next is going to be a branch where each leads in different directions.

 

 

 

13: now click ‘PRGM’ and then ‘ENTER’. you can see that ‘If’ was placed in the program, type ‘A’.

 

 

 

14: here is a tricky part, press ‘2nd’ and then ‘CATALOG’ which is the 2nd button from the left on the bottom row. using the ‘up’ and ‘down’ arrows, scroll until you see the ‘=’ sign. when the little black arrow is pointing at it, hit ‘ENTER’.

 

 

 

15: now hit ‘1’ and then ‘ENTER’. press ‘PRGM’ and then ‘0’. you get ‘Goto’ on the program screen. next simply hit ‘1’.

 

 

 

16: repeat numbers 13,14, and 15 but instead of ‘1’ hit ‘2’ in the spots required. in the end it will look like this: ‘If A=2

 

Goto 2

 

 

 

17: now we can do some more logical non-technical stuff. press ‘PRGM’ and then ‘9’. ‘Lbl’ comes up, now hit ‘1’and then ‘ENTER’ what we have just done is told the program that the next few lines we write will be the sub-program for the whole program. imagine it like a tree that splits from the single trunk to 2 branches. the two branches never interact yet they came from the same source, that’s how this works. we had one program where you decided what you wanted to do, now you will input numbers to solve for variables. for you younger kids, a variable is a number that can change, for instance, (3.14)R where you can change R to get a different number when multiplied by 3.14.

 

 

 

18: next hit ‘PRGM’ and ‘>’. hit ‘ENTER’ and you get ‘Input’. ‘input’ stands for a number that you are pressing. your giving input to the calculator. type “DROP HEIGHT”,H. what will be displayed is ‘DROP HEIGHT’ and ,H is what we will put in the formula to stand for height. consider it a tag or label.

 

 

 

19: now we’re going to do the same thing as above but instead it will turn out as Input “LIFT SPEED”,L. remember to get the ‘Input’ go to ‘PRGM’, hit ‘>’ and then ‘ENTER’.

 

 

 

20: here is the fun part; the formula! don’t you feel like a mad scientist? the formula is ‘square root of’ H*.3048*9.81/.5)*2.2369363*.864+L=V. to get the ‘square root of’, hit ‘2nd’ then ‘x2’ which is the first button 5 rows up from the bottom. to get the ‘(‘, hit the side-by-side buttons in the 5th row, 3 and 4 columns from the left. to get the ‘=’ at then end, don’t hit ‘ENTER’, that will just take you to the next line. instead, hit ‘STO->’ which is 2nd row from the bottom, first button. it will give you a symbol similar to ‘>’, then type V.

 

 

 

21: now that we’ve got our formula written, we have to display the answer! it doesn’t do it on its own so we have to tell it to. to do this, type ‘DROP SPEED IS:”,V’. I’m pretty sure you know how to type all of that. what that line does is take the answer from our formula, V, and attaches it to the line ‘DROP SPEED IS’. once again, you see that the ,V is a tag that tells what and where from to pull something.

 

 

 

22: the first branch of our program is almost done, all that needs left is to close it. to do this, hit ‘PRGM’ then ‘ALPHA’ and finally ‘F’. ‘Stop appears in your program. what the ‘ALPHA F’ did was select the correct direction and it wasn’t a number since ‘Stop’ was so far down the list of directions.

 

 

 

23: one branch down, one to go. for this next one, I won’t be as detailed as the first so stay focused and pay attention. type in ‘Lbl 2’. remember that ‘Lbl’ is a direction so you hit ‘PRGM’ then ‘9’

 

 

 

24: here is the 2nd branch of the program;

 

Lbl 2

 

Input “DESIRED SPEED:”,V

 

Input “LIFT SPEED:”,L

 

(((V/2.2369363)2 *.5/9.81)+L)*3.2808=H

 

Disp “HEIGHT IS”,H

 

Stop

 

you should be able to copy that down without any problem or issues. just remember that to get ‘Input’ you go ‘PRGM’ ‘>’ twice and ‘ENTER’. same for Disp except instead of ‘ENTER’ you hit ‘3’. don’t forget the 3 tags at the ends of the ‘Input’s and ‘Disp’.

 

 

 

25: test the formula by turning off your calculator and turning it back on. hit PRGM and then find the program titled ‘CSTRDROP’. highlight the number next to hit and hit enter. it will ask you the questions and if you will plainly input the answers you need and want. for a test, run the program and hit ‘1’ then ‘ENTER’. it asks you the drop height, put 208 in and hit ‘ENTER’. then it asks for the lift speed, hit ‘6’ then ‘ENTER’.

 

 

 

Complaint Department

 

 

 

If something goes wrong, its your fault! Haha, no, if your having trouble with the formulas or how to work with your calculator, talk with me on AIM, MSN, or PM/E-Mail me. I’d be happy to help. These formulas are great at working with elementary; they tell you what the train will do in different situations. Remember that the drop height isn’t the height of the structure. For instance, Raging Bull is only 202’ tall but the drop is 208’ tall. So I would put 208 for the H variable. The lift speed is exactly what it sounds like. Put it at 6 and hit enter. Tada! 74.16414787 comes up. That’s in mph and all the inputs you make such as height and speed are all to be in imperial fashion. Speed=MPH, Length=Ft, ect. This particular formula was made to be accurate with B&M hyper coasters in NoLimits and real life ones such as Raging Bull and Apollo’s Chariot. They may not work correctly with Intamin or Vekoma coasters. Reason being, they have different friction rates, which is the rate of speed lost over a given distance. I have it set for B&M at 0.864 at the moment and to change it, just find those numbers in the formula and change it as needed. I’ll post the Intamin, Vekoma, and wooden friction rates as I calculate them. The reason there are 2 programs is that one of them calculates the speed at a drop from you giving a height. The other is the opposite; you give a speed and it tells you how high you need to be to get that speed. The 2nd program has some issues and isn’t 100% accurate. It should be within 1-5 feet though. The first program is only off by 1 or so mph so its pretty accurate. Reason for its in-accuracy could be different lift speeds and friction rates between coasters. Well that wraps it up for this tutorial, 2 more are to come; G-forces and launches! Happy programming!

 

Calculator Programs for Coasters.doc

The document in Word.

[PkiJake]

What is the program, what doe it do?

 

-Jake

[benzo41190]

I think it allows you to make you own ride (not visually) and give you feed back on the height, speed, angle, ect......

 

I will work on this over X-Mass break!!!!!

[jimths08]

Yes, this particular program will tell you how fast you will go from a certain height. For example, at 208' you will hit about 74mph with a lift speed of 6mph. At 310' you will hit 98mph with a lift speed of 15mph. Vice versa; if you know how fast you want to go, then you use the 2nd branch (2) of the program to find how high you need to be to get to a certain speed. Its meant for NoLimits but it can be used just to screw around with. Heh, if you were 5280' in the air, your speed would be 350mph at the bottom. :shock:

 

I hope to be able to make programs that do draw coasters with graphs, right now I've no idea how to do it or execute it. If possible, it would be like; you want a lift X steep X high, a drop X long and X steep, a hill X tall and X wide, an overbank with X force and X bank, ect. You would just input what element you want and the variables on each. Its complicated and won't happen for a LONG time.

[ebl]

"Heh, if you were 5280' in the air, your speed would be 350mph at the bottom."

 

And you'd probably be dead, too.

 

Eric

[jimths08]

Prolly yea, you could control the gs, but you'd have to have a whole corn field!

[ParkTrips]

Jeez when I was in high school all we did was play poker and racing games and occasionally program our calculators to, um, "assist" us with tests... but that is uber-cool!

 

- Joe, who no longer has an 83 (but has a 89Titanium)

[jimths08]

Joe, you can do the program too, I'm sure you know how to do it but if you don't; the only difference is probably how to get to "PRGM". Hit "APPS", then press '8'. Sorry if you allready knew. I've got programs too to walk me through tests, they take all the pain away.

 

I've got one program that acts just as if it were clearing your memory, but then it doesn't. Our teachers have us clear our memory so when they come around and see that, I'm home free! Life is good.

[benzo41190]

^ I did that too! During our practice SAT's and ACT's a few years ago we made a little pic that said "TI-83 Mem Cleared" and it looked EXACTLEy the same

 

My favorite games that I have our Pimp Quest, Albequrkey (spell?), Jezz Ball, Mario Levels, Connect 4, LCD Fix (a great thing to watch when you are bored, stars (another thing to watch), tunnel, Fall Up???, Duck Hunt, Rad Racer, Skate or Die, DDR (no music though of course), and many more!

 

I love my graphics calculator!

[jimths08]

And you are quite lucky. My calculator was given to me for free from someone who had just got out of college. Though mine can take and make programs, it can't handle applications. So no Mario for me..

[benzo41190]

So you didnt have an application menu or was the memory so small that you couldnt put anything on it.

 

The one I used to have didnt have a apps button but I was still able to put on Mirage and all the games.

[jimths08]

I can't put APPS on it becuase my calculator doesn't recognize some of the symbols used in them. But yea, I don't have an APPS button.

[benzo41190]

What kind of model do you have?

 

I think there is a version of Mirage that is not an App, but you may not be able to play some of the good games like, Mega Man, Mario, Pimp Quest, ect....

[jimths08]

I have the TI-83. And yea, Mario won't work on mine.... If there is a version of Mirage that is applicable with mine, I've yet to find it.

[Twister II]

The only thing that is left out is friction, and thats REALLY important if you want accurate speed.

[benzo41190]

Well my sister had a TI-83 that had no Apps and she had to go into programs and find Mirage. I know it wasnt a App, i think it was a Avtr...what ever that is.....but I know she had Fall Down, Tunnel, Block Dude, and some other simple games.

 

Ill have to look for that calculator

[jimths08]

The only thing that is left out is friction, and thats REALLY important if you want accurate speed.

 

Actually, friction is in there, its the .864 part. Take the formula and plug in real life examples and you'll see they come out pretty accurate. When you do it with Raging Bull, its within 0.25 of a mph. The only one it gets a little off on is Silver Star. I'm still trying to figure out why.

[benzo41190]

I just printed it out! I am totaly doing this during my off hour before Swim Practice.

[jimths08]

Before you do it, print this one out. I just found an error in the one you have.

 

Disp “SOLVE FOR”

Disp “1 SPEED:”

Disp “2 HEIGHT:”

Input “”,A

If A=1

Goto 1

If A=2

Goto 2

Lbl 1

Input “DROP HEIGHT:”,H

Input “LIFT SPEED:”,L

‘square root of’ H*.3048*9.81/.5)*2.2369363*.864+L=V

Disp “DROP SPEED IS:”,V

Stop

Lbl 2

Input “DESIRED SPEED:”,V

Input “LIFT SPEED:”,L

(((V/2.2369363)2 *.5/9.81)+L)*3.2808=H

Disp “HEIGHT IS”,H

Stop

 

Remember that the 2 after the (V/2.2369363) is a square and not a *times by 2*. The = sign at the end of each formula is not really an = sign, its a > arrow sign. Get it by going to *2nd* *CATALOG* and finding the = sign.

[benzo41190]

ok thank you...that would suck to do all that work and have it all go to waste!

 

Just fixed it

[kenshinmac]

You can load assembly apps onto almost any of the Ti calculators. You just need to find out how to and get the link cable that attaches to your comp.

 

I used to program TI-Basic stuff all the time and made a lot of cool games on my 82 but sadly lost them all in a dead battery situation...

 

Anyway the best resource on the net for calculator stuff I have found is http://www.ticalc.org/ . They have an amazing amount of stuff and some great games. All you need for the 83 is just to get the USB link cable and hook it up to your computer.