This Teenager Wants To Build A Roller Coaster At North Campus

When Sean Matias was a kid, the idea of roller coasters frightened him. 

Their depths. Their monstrous heights. Their stomach-churning velocity.

Those details were nerve-racking for an eight year-old boy, who found serenity in Thomas the Tank Engine and other trains—simple man-made machinery that stays on the ground. 

Four years later, Matias’ terror turned into passion after a family trip to Busch Gardens Tampa Bay. 

The experience allowed him to see “the entire motion of the roller coaster, how it gains [and] loses speed through the track” and it “ignited” his passion.

Today, the 19-year-old, a sophomore in the Honors College at North Campus, hopes to share his fascination for roller coasters by building one on campus as part of a leadership service project.

“I love everything about them,” Matias said. “I love how they look, how they feel when you’re riding them, how they can really distract you from all your problems. When you’re riding roller coasters, it’s really all you can think about.”

Those thoughts have galvanized the teenager, as he pursues an associate’s degree in mechanical engineering. He used FVD++, a free program popular with coaster enthusiasts, to design a model that is more than 200 feet long, 90 feet wide and 30 feet tall. It will accommodate a single rider. 

Matias also created a 42-inch long replica made of thermoplastic filament utilizing a 3-D printer at the Artificial Intelligence Center at North Campus.

During the past year, he has met with North Campus President Fermin Vazquez more than four times to discuss the ride’s dimensions, funding, safety and securing engineers and architects to review his work.

Based on its size, the ride could potentially be erected in the field behind the Science Complex or on the grassy area adjacent to the 4000 building. 

“He’s persistent,” said Juan Catala, a physics professor who has mentored Matias with the project. “He doesn’t take no for an answer. You say no. [He says,] ‘Why not? What do we need to do to make it a yes?’”

When the project is completed, Catala hopes to integrate the roller coaster into his curriculum to help students visualize physics concepts such as velocity, gravity and inertia.  

Matias, who has about a dozen roller coaster-themed T-shirts, feeds his fondness for the genre by playing Ultimate Coaster 2, an app that allows users to create and test roller coasters, visiting Busch Gardens four to five times a year with his family—they have a seasonal pass—and participating in discord chats.

At North Campus, he is president and founder of Theme Park Design and Engineering, a club that aims to explore the intricacies of roller coasters, and of Mu Alpha Theta—the mathematics honor society for community college students. 

Matias is also part of the Techno Craft Club, an organization for engineering students, and the Artificial Intelligence & Robotics Club.

But his heart remains loyal to building a roller coaster, something that has not gone unnoticed by his peers.

“It’s grown to the point [where] it’s becoming real,” said his friend and North Campus classmate Antonio Cortes. “It’s not just all over the phone now. He’s building an actual roller coaster.”

Currently, Matias is seeking a manufacturing facility that can produce steel tracks that are the ideal size for the ride. That will determine the cost of the project. 

He anticipates the endeavor will take one or two more years to complete but the idea fuels his dream to design roller coasters worldwide.

“I plan on taking [my ideas] to Busch Gardens,” Matias said. “To build roller coasters [for them] then wherever else that takes me.” 

Staff writer Nikole Valiente contributed to this story.

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