The Pirate Ship Ride Model was originally inspired by the Pirate Ride at Hershey Park. The "ship" part of the ride has a center of mass that lies 14 m from the pivot point (approximately the center of the boat). The ship swings freely from the pivot, and is driven by a roller built into the floor directly below the ship. The operator presses either the clockwise torque button or the counter clockwise torque button to change the motion of the ship. Because the drive can only push the ship when it is in contact, the drive is only available when the ship is within 30º of its lowest postion. The drive buttons are grey when no drive is available (simulation is paused or the ship coes not contact the drive roller), the turn white when the drive is available. When drive button is pressed, it turns green and a constant torque is exerted on the ship unitl the button is released or until the ship moves out of contact with the drive roller. Note that torque can not be applied if the simulation is paused or has not been started.

The Pirate Ship Ride Model was created using the Easy Java Simulations (EJS) modeling tool.  It is distributed as a ready-to-run (compiled) Java archive.  Double clicking the jar file will run the program if Java is installed.

Please note that this resource requires at least version 1.5 of Java (JRE).