Jon Wocher Summer Experience with The Gravity Group

07/14/10
Jonathan Wocher is a fifth-year Mechanical Engineering student from Loveland, OH. In addition to activities with TPEG, he also plays baritone in The Ohio State University Marching Band and is a member of the music fraternity Phi Mu Alpha. He was selected to be a drafting intern for The Gravity Group during summer 2010.

TPEG: How and when did you get interested in roller coasters and the theme park industry?

JW: I’ve been interested in coasters as long as I can remember. Perhaps it was easy to spark interest in a child that lives 10 min away from Kings Island, but I remember loving them even before I could ride them. As a kid I would string Hotwheels track all around the house, attempting to build the longest and most exciting coaster that gravity would allow. I not only rode my sled down the stairs, but also constructed a giant, metal, banked turn that would allow for my ride to continue on into the basement. I played coaster-design computer games long before Roller Coaster Tycoon was conceived. I drew a different roller coaster on the back of perhaps every assignment I ever submitted in elementary school. I even filmed and created a motion-simulator ride, which I insisted upon all of my neighbors experiencing. Yes – I was excruciatingly nerdy.
Now that I am older and my talents and interests have led me into the study of Mechanical Engineering, I am attracted to the amusement industry for a different reason. I’ve always enjoyed “creating”, whether it’s a song, a gadget, a structure or a drawing; if it can be made, I probably enjoy making it. Engineers make a lot of cool, useful stuff, but how many utilitarian tools and structures generate as much excitement as a roller coaster? The idea of using my talent, passion and education to create things that bring people joy has always been appealing to me, but as I get closer to the amusement industry through TPEG, I find myself becoming enthralled with the idea.

TPEG: Do you have a favorite coaster or attraction?

JW: There are still many coasters on my “to-ride” list, but out of everything that I have ridden so far, my favorite is hands-down The Voyage at Holiday World. A triple-down hidden in a tunnel?! Brilliant. I’m also a fan of the Disney and Universal theme parks in general.

TPEG: If you can, talk to us about a “normal” day at TGG

JW: Basically, the only thing that is the same from day to day is that I drink about a pot of coffee. My main job is using CAD software to draft, adjust and detail bents in accordance with Gravity Group’s standards and track layout. A roller coaster bent is, in effect, all of the structure that you see below the track. Typically, I come into work and get a list of bents that need some sort of drafting attention (small or large) and I am given certain vital data about how they should be constructed; then I get to work. Although this is my primary job, as I said before, there is no such thing as a typical day at The Gravity Group. My job duties frequently expand to include dimensioning, part creation and, occasionally, snow-cone eating. I am excited for the future because it sounds like there will be even greater variety to my daily routine and possibly some involvement with Gravity Group’s sister corporation, Gravitykraft.

TPEG: What has been your best experience so far? Any stories?

JW: Well, I can’t think of any outrageous stories so far but I feel like it’s only a matter of time. Honestly, the best experience has been the entire experience in general. I mean, how many people can say: “before I even graduated college, I was one of a handful of people who helped design multi-million dollar structures that were built all across the globe and brought joy to millions of lives”? Seriously, I am giddy to go to work every day.

TPEG: What would you say is the most challenging aspect of designing a roller coaster?

JW: Well, that’s hard for me to say since anything that I would consider “design” was done well before I began work at TGG However, when I’m doing my basic drafting work, there are three considerations that play a big role and shape how I approach creating anything. First, it has to work conceptually. The design has to achieve the rider experience that the group desires – this includes the basic layout and all the defining elements. Second, the design has to work mechanically: the train has to make it from station to station – no pit-stops or shortcuts; not only that, but the structure has to support the forces that are incurred at every inch of track. This is the manifestation of all the nitty-gritty engineering and analysis. Finally, it must work physically: the pieces have to fit together. Things that are possible on paper don’t always translate well when you are working with real, manufacturable parts. Two pieces can’t occupy the same space and with a structure the scale of a roller coaster, there must be some consistency when it comes to lumber sizes and other parts. The tricky part is that if you change something to satisfy one condition, it likely spoils another condition, and it takes constant iteration to reach a point where all three of these requirements are met. This is the most challenging aspect of my job – not making sure any one thing works, but making sure that everything works at the same time, in the same design. I have to imagine that if this is the hardest part of working on a small scale, it is definitely the hardest part of working on the grand scale.

TPEG: As we can assume there is a lot of work that goes “behind-the-scenes” at your job, what is something you will probably think about the next time you ride a coaster that you might not have before?

JW: Even more so than I did already, I will really appreciate that every single piece, cut, hole and nail was drafted and constructed by someone. It’s easy to look at a wooden coaster and be impressed with the size of the structure and the number of parts. It’s much harder to comprehend that someone had to put each and every one of those there, both conceptually and physically. Another thing that I won’t be able to help thinking about is places where the coaster changed. To the average rider, there is just one coaster – the one that you are riding, but for me, it will always be a living, evolving thing full of tracks that used to be and could have been. Like a dream that you get confused with reality, I could definitely see myself getting nervous when the train takes a turn towards, say, an area that used to be engine housing or crosses through a bent that once had a clearance conflict.

TPEG: Is Korey as tall as he looks in pictures?!?

JW: Indeed Korey is a mammoth of a man. Outside of pictures, I’ve never actually seen Korey’s face, only the bottom of his chin. If you’ve ever ridden the Steel Phantom / Phantom’s Revenge at Kennywood, you likely appreciate the fact that coaster-crossovers are designed with a clearance envelope in mind – that way, whether your arms are up/down/in/out, they aren’t hitting anything. To be extra-safe, the Gravity Group chose Korey to be a human model for developing a clearance envelope that would accommodate riders who accidentally step on NBA players in crowded areas.

Thanks Jon!

January 2011 Update:
Jonathan is now a full time employee of the Gravitykraft Corporation, where he works as an assistant to the company president, Michael Graham. His current job duties include assisting in the management of the Timberliner train project, producing and analyzing test data and preparing relevant calculations.