A Fun Friday The 13th?

 Today, I woke up just a bit earlier than my usual schedule, but it was worth it. I was able to get breakfast and a handful of snacks for the two hour bus ride to Hershey Park. Wait, did I just say Hershey Park? Yes, I did. It is the day that everyone has been waiting for and boy was it an awesome day. For the bus ride, I sat near my partners for the project, Kim and Michael, and we laid out our blueprints for the day. We were planning on trying to finish our research in thirty minutes, so that we can have the rest of the day to have fun.

Coolest Physics Project Ever

We arrived at Hershey Park at around 10:30AM. I was anxious to smell the air because Eli Lesser told me that the Hershey Factory right next to the park gave off a chocolaty aroma. Oh my god, that air did not disappoint, it gave me a huge craving for chocolate. But that craving was going to have to wait until the research was complete. We got into Hershey Park, got our GLX, and then head off to Sidewinder. I volunteered to wear the vest along with the GLX for the rides. As I sat down and strapped myself in the first ride, I noticed that I couldn’t see the buttons, so in a slight panic, I pushed what felt like the oval play button. Sidewinder was crazy fast with two loops and two trips back and forth in a boomerang type of action. We were to use the GLX to examine the acceleration of the ride, which we were later going to analyze and present. It turned out that our GLX timed out while we were waiting in line, so were unable to collect any data, but we did learn the best method of getting our data without any errors. We rode Sidewinder a couple more times with successful data and we even were able to get a video of the ride.

By the time we finished collecting data, we noticed that it has been over four hours since our last meal. We decide to use our meal pass at Subway, which turned out to be a bad idea. The Subway was very limited in breads, meats, and vegetables, but the worst part was that they didn’t serve their famous foot longs. We met up with Professor Bill to give back the equipment and discuss our data. I was really confused and astonished at Bill’s capabilities to see when the ride had a loop by just viewing the acceleration. We joined up with another group, but then ended up splitting up because some want to go on the water rides and others didn’t. I was for the dry rides, but would have gone to the water rides if it wasn’t in the seventies today. But we did decide on going to Chocolate World at 2:30PM. This gave us an hour and a half to go on as much rides as possible.

We eyeball one ride, Great Bear, which went across a good chunk of the park, found its line, and then waited. The wait was about half an hour, but completely worth it because we ended up getting front seats. The whole ride was filled with screams of joy, and I am basing this off the reason I was screaming. We wanted to go on another ride, but noticed that we only half an hour and didn’t want to wait in line. Neil recommended that we go Lightning runner because it is two cars that race against each other, so the line would be really small. The only downfall was that it was across the park and made out of wood. We got there in twenty minutes and to our luck, there was no line. Half of us went on Lightning and the other half went on Thunder, I was Team Thunder. While the ride was setting up, Michael and I kept giving the ride a bigger thrill by talking about how it’s made out of wood and today is Friday the 13^th. The ride was safe, but I left upset because Team Lightning won. There was a couple minutes left, so we had a round two. I think that ride was rigged because Team Lightning won again.

Who Wouldn't Want To Go?

We got to Chocolate World at 3:00PM, the walk kill our timing. Either way, I got to put an end to my chocolate crave with dark chocolate cheese cake with chocolate syrup, chocolate whipped cream, whipped cream, and an old-fashioned Hershey’s Bar. It was getting really close to 3:30PM, meeting time, so we were only able to enjoy ourselves for a few minutes. But boy were those chocolaty minutes magical.

One Way To Beat The Crave

When we arrived back to Penn, it was already 6:10PM. We had to meet up with everyone in the quad so that we can leave to our movie. Today, I watched The Amazing Spiderman, along with almost everyone who watched Ted last Friday. It was a really relaxing way to end the day, especially after walking around Hershey Park, which I didn’t mind as I was doing it, but am now sad that it’s over. Tomorrow, we are going to Washington D.C. and I can’t wait for the adventure that will bring.