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Our science Olympiad team is starting up soon and I was wondering what material is normally used for the jumps on roller coasters. Last year we used some hot wheel track glued to a wooden ramp we cut out but the jump wasn’t very fluid and barley gave us the 5cm minimum. I was thinking about 3d printing the ramp this season but I am unsure if it will work good enough with my limited knowledge on 3d designing.

Hi!
I would suggest for the loop/gap using some sort of copper tubing(there is flexible copper tubing!) or using some sort of flexible pvc cut in half with a dremel. 3D printing I found was a bit too rough, and its hard to get a perfect curve in 3d printing. I would use the above materials with some sort of steel/stainless steel marble or ball bearing. My roller coaster from nats is on the Best of Nats 2023 if you wish to see an example of Flexible PVC pipe being used.

Will do thank you for your help

One more question is it worth it to go for a loop score or should I just focus on the gaps last year we tried loops but couldn’t find a solution that would work.

Is it worth it to go for the loop score? If you can make it work, then yes. 6 points per cm of loop height is worth getting, and if you have a decent track, you don't give up much energy by doing a loop. But, as you understood from last year, a device that works reliably will do better than an ambitious device that doesn't actually work.

We used the paper roller coaster templates. Had great success with the gaps and the loops. There are all kinds of templates in the 2 sets we purchased and card stock is cheap and easy to work with. Humidity can play a roll with the paper, but we plan to brace things better this year.

The loop score is very important, however, it really depends on if you can create a large gap for your device, so it's really all about what you prefer and what your device has.