DIY Roller Coasters, Coming to a Backyard Near You

The Mall of America is home to one of the largest indoor theme parks in the world, and, like any good theme park, it has a roller coaster. The tracks swoop and swirl around under an enormous space frame/skylight system that mimics the outdoors without the hassle of the harsh Minnesota winter. The coaster also wraps around several of the structural pillars, making it one of the few rides that interacts with a building this way.

Mall of America. Image via Wikipedia Commons

But one real estate agent in Ermelo, The Netherlands, took it one step further. ABN AMRO generates publicity through gimmicks that are intended to sell houses. One of them was a roller coaster that took potential buyers through the house in a single car, open for all of last December.

Image via animalnewyork.com

Not only did this create extra attention for this house, it offered prospective homeowners the chance to experience architecture through an amusement park ride. The video shows clients whizzing through the garage and up the stairs into the kitchen. They then track through the living room and through a pair of large french doors. The coaster even makes its way up to the second floor and then out the window and back down to the start. It is a wild journey.

The Dutch DIY coaster looks surprisingly smooth, much like a similar small-scale ride built by a group of MIT students for rush week in 2014. They assembled a clever system that lets riders go backwards and forwards by making the coaster symmetrical, like a glorified skate ramp. The plywood and lumber coaster held up quite well. Unfortunately, the man shut down their plans to build a loop. So now everyone knows their goal for taking the DIY coaster to the next level.