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sdettling

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About sdettling

  • Birthday 04/22/1985

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  1. Sorry I went MIA for a while. I'll give an update here about what's been going on with the app and try to answer some of the questions that were brought up. First things first, during the Apple's app review process they determined that the app's use of the workout and heart rate features were not a valid use case because the app isn't primarily used for fitness. I tried to make my case but they ultimately decided those features needed to be removed. This means several features on the watch have been lost including inversions, hangtime, altitude and heart rate. I hope there is a way to bring them back at some point in the future which will depend on if Apple decides to open up these APIs for more use cases. Thanks to everyone for their patience while I was working this out. The latest update should help prevent most of the crashes you were experiencing. For those seeing weird data, MiABeta's explanation is quite accurate. The Apple Watch app attempts to calibrate the down direction a few seconds after you start the ride, which is then used to extract the force only along the vertical axis. You can edit this calibration point when you edit a ride on your phone. I hope to use similar calculations in the future to show lateral and longitudinal forces. If your device moves around too much during the ride it can throw this off. In that case you can always disable vertical force calculation and view the forces from all 3 axis combined into one. This is still pretty accurate for positive forces but can't detect negative g's (but it can show zero-g or floater air). As far as overall accuracy, the results seem pretty close to what I'd expect. I do apply filtering to the data to avoid spikes that occur especially on rougher rides. Thanks everyone for trying out the app and for the feedback. I hope to keep making improvements.
  2. Ah thanks for letting me know, I'll note this in the app and on the App Store listing. Apple's documentation wasn't very clear on this, it does appear that you'll need an iPhone 7 or newer to record rides on an iPhone. For those with older phones you could still pair an Apple Watch, if you have one, and use it that way.
  3. Yes only iPhone at the moment. An Android version would probably be possible but I don't have plans to work on that in the short term. The 1 g force of gravity is included in this calculation so 3.6 is the correct value. Acrobat, the clone of Manta at Nagashima Spa Land, lists the max g force of their ride at 4.09 g. So it's close but not quite the same. There are many variables that could account for discrepancies like this, such as what seat you're in (I was near the back on this ride, I think the middle might produce higher forces?), how fast the ride is running, rattle of the ride vehicle, and the calibration of equipment. I can't vouch for the complete accuracy of the accelerometers in our mobile devices but it should give a decent approximation.
  4. Ha yes, that was definitely a consideration when deciding to build the app for Apple Watch. I encourage everyone to follow the rules!
  5. Hi all. I wanted to share an app I’ve been working on for the past year or so with Coastin Eric that I hope coaster enthusiasts like ourselves might find interesting. For several years I’ve found myself wanting more when it comes to thrill ride statistics. Sure we’ve got standard ones like height, length, speed, and if we’re lucky max g force. As a lover of airtime I wanted to know more than just the max g force. I remembered playing games like RollerCoaster Tycoon seeing stats like max negative g’s, total airtime, and a graph of the forces throughout the whole ride. I wanted these stats for real rides. I did some searching and found only a handful of graphs like this for coasters on the internet so I set out to try recording them myself. I ended up building an app for iPhone and Apple Watch called Ride Forces which you can download here if you’d like to try it for yourself. The main goal of the app currently is to capture vertical g forces. I’ll spare you the technical details, but here are a few examples of rides I recorded with the app that revealed interesting results. El Toro was a big inspiration for this app, I always wanted to know just how strong the negative g forces were on those ejector airtime hills. This ride in the last car produced forces of -1.3 g Ever wonder just how forceful a pretzel loop is? Manta at SeaWorld Orlando pulls 3.6 g in the pretzel loop (pictured here as negative g force since face down is considered the positive direction). The human body actually tolerates high g forces best in this position. Non coaster rides can also be recorded. Here's a Giant Discovery, which creates a cool looking pattern, and more airtime than Steel Vengeance! So to recap, here are some reasons you might want to use the app for yourself: Allows you to relive your favorite rides Helps you rate rides based on real data, rather than trying to recall the experience from memory Share your experience on social media in a unique way You can compare how the dynamics of a ride are affected by various factors such as: Where you sit on the ride How the ride changes over time (trim adjustments, retracking, wear and tear...) Effects of weather and temperature Happy to receive any feedback or questions you have about the app. It’s a bit simple for now but I hope to add more features over time.
  6. I visited Discovery Kingdom today. Here's a quick photo update featuring The Joker's construction and some other stuff they're working on around the park. Some Joker track. Coaster parts! Track in the parking lot, very Six Flags. A nice view at the entrance of the park. Lots of rides were closed today. The Joker's first drop Transition after the first drop into the first inversion. View of Joker's first inversion from outside the park's entrance. Joker's first inversion from another angle. The trick track before the lift. Overview of Joker's construction so far. Chop Six is coming soon. They're adding a sports bar type place too. Looks like this train on Medusa has been refurbished. Goodbye Discovery Kingdom, see you again soon.
  7. I've been wondering about this, specifically how orientation should affect calculated forces. As an example, a barrel roll taken at a slow speed. (Think Tempesto, or Hydra) As you go through the inversion you're always experiencing 1 G but the angle changes, so you'll take 1 G of lateral force when you're body is parallel to the ground. When you're upside down you're experiencing -1 G. So then do we consider a ride that just holds you upside down to be providing negative Gs?
  8. Great Adventure some weekend in September. Then Disney World and Universal the first week of October.
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