You are responsible for setting the controls for the height of hill #1, hill #2, the size of the loop, the initial speed of the coaster, its mass, the gravity at work and the amount of friction on the track. This great educational online tool offers an interactive way for kids to play a roller coaster game. Roller coasters are able to move their passengers very rapidly up and down the hills because the cars gain a large amount of potential energy from the very first hill. Kinetic energy is mechanical energy that is due to motion of an object. Thermal energy is energy due to the heat of a system or object.
The vast majority of complex structures/designs use more than one area of technology. Perhaps the most important one is actually computer technology, as computers are an important active safety feature for roller coaster operations and are vital in designing the actual roller coaster. Computer simulations are able to realtively-easily calculate the advanced physics (stresses, curves, air resistence and other factors) that are required to make the design work as safely as possible. With better computer.