This student built a roller coaster in his parent’s backyard

Geek.com
Aug. 6, 2014
Lee Mathews

Thornhill is a quiet suburban neighborhood north of Toronto. Quiet, except for the occasional clattering of David Chesney’s personal wooden roller coaster.

This is the Minotaur, an amazingly geeky piece of backyard engineering. Chesney, a 19-year-old Queens University student, started working on it back when he was still in high school. All told, it cost just $3,000 to build, which is about the price of a fancy flat-packed wooden play structure.

It’s not the Coney Island Cyclone, but it’s undeniably cool. The Minotaur is just over 90 feet long, with drops of about 12 feet at the start and finish, and a couple of small hills tossed in for added excitement along the way.

The single-seat car reaches a top speed of 12.4 miles per hour (20 kilometers per hour), so the ride’s over fairly quickly. Thrill seekers can also ride the coaster backwards to keep things interesting. Unfortunately, those thrill seekers have to live in David’s house: due to liability concerns, no one’s riding the Minotaur except family members.

While you can’t drop in on David and take a ride on his backyard roller coaster, you may just be able to take it home. Dad wants thSe yard back, so David plans to dismantle The Minotaur and auction it off for charity.

If Thornhill is too far away for you to make a serious effort to buy, why not follow David’s lead and build a backyard roller coaster of your own? Plenty of other people have, and it can be done for as little as $300 – provided you’re doing it on a kiddie coaster scale.