Teufelsrad (amusement ride)

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Feldl's Teufelsrad at Oktoberfest in Munich (2011)

A devil's wheel is a ride on folk festivals and fairs . Devil's wheels have been around since 1908 or 1910. Today they are rarely found.

construction

A Teufelsrad is a rotating circular platform ( "passenger area") to the tent in a closed an annular viewers grandstand is built ( "spectator area"). A “re- commander ” animates the visitors to use the platform, comments on what is happening, controls the speed of the rotation and drives his joke and joke with the users to the fun of the passive spectators all around.

Visitors who want to take an active part can, upon request, go to the platform that has been brought to a standstill and try to stand, sit or lie there while the disc is set in rotation and turns increasingly faster. The platform is driven by a powerful motor (similar to the platter of a record player ) and is usually braked by shoe brakes.

Because of its rotation, the disk is not an inertial system ; swiveling the head irritates the sense of balance (except in the axis of rotation). If you move radially outwards, in addition to the expected centrifugal force (outwards), the Coriolis force also has a subjectively surprising effect - because it is tangential (i.e. to the side) - under whose effect you stumble or roll off to the side.

The most stable place on the platform is near the center point to stand, walk or prance on the plate, or sit or lie. Those who are closer to the edge are soon pushed outwards by centrifugal force and slide or ball off the plate. You may be caught by a padded wall and escorted away by employees in order to free up the area all around for the next slide.

Injuries can still occur if someone uncontrollably loses their balance or trips and hits the unpadded floor. So whoever controls the speed of the bike has the option of reducing the speed of the person rolling off the disc or giving participants the chance to reposition themselves towards the center.

On the rotating platform, in addition to attempts to simply hold on, competitions are held to see who can stay on the plate the longest.

For amusement and to make things more difficult, the commanding officer lets a large, heavy, but nevertheless soft ball dangle down onto the pulley on a pulley that swings a little, in order to irritate and to induce movements to hit even those who can still hold in the center of the pivot point and dissuade from the middle; thereby he also makes him the plaything of the physical forces mentioned. And also the constellation in which several people lying around the middle hold hands, only withstands the centrifugal force for a limited time. The ball can be dragged along by the moving platform when it is lowered and, when pulled up again, is brought into a circular pendulum motion, which requires additional irritating head movements and evasive maneuvers from the users of the disc.

Anyone who even gets up in the middle cannot escape the rope, which - thrown onto the disc from the side - rubs against a foot or even loops around it, pulls and somehow gets even the most skilled off the disc. Sometimes it keeps individual participants on the target despite all measures - until the commander declares this person the winner.

Versions and usage

A smaller version of the devil's wheel was released to visitors in December 2011 in the Experiminta ScienceCenter FrankfurtRheinMain and has become part of the exhibition. Devil's wheels can still be found today, for example, at the Munich Oktoberfest or in the Taunus Wunderland .

There are small turntables to walk over in rides, which represent a kind of skill course for walking for amusement.

Others

Teufelsrad x Hirmer x Meindl is the name of a cooperation between a traditional costume house and a lederhosen manufacturer with the operator of the Teufelsrad from 2016.

Teufelsrad is the name of a board game to roll the dice as a variant of Mensch ärgere dich nicht (from 1910) with 100 fields, which leads from the edge in a spiral to the center of a circle, which is shown as a wheel with 6 spokes.

In an article in September 2018, physicist Georg Egger explained the physics of the devil's wheel with gravity , centrifugal and frictional forces . He gives the following values: disc diameter = 5 m, conical elevation in the middle = 20 cm, speed = (up to) 23 revolutions per minute. He calculates cases for lederhosen and silk dirndls on the smooth wood-based panel and assumes coefficients of friction of 1.0 and 0.1, respectively. Vacuum suction cups, glue and wood screws are strictly prohibited on the devil's wheel.

Web links

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Girl conquers the devil's wheel Olek Video, October 18, 2013, YouTube , accessed May 5, 2019. - With short lederhosen and barefoot at 0.3-0.4 revolutions / second.
  2. ^ New experiment station "Teufelsrad" in the "Experiminta" in Frankfurt. In: Experiminta ScienceCenter. January 5, 2012, accessed May 10, 2014 .
  3. ↑ Devil's Wheel. On: taunuswunderland.de. Retrieved May 10, 2014
  4. ↑ Das Teufelsrad, old game, antiquarian cardboard box , "sold", Heinrich Graetzner, Vienna, antiquepool.at, accessed May 5, 2019. - Pictures.
  5. ↑ Mensch ärgere dich nicht - tournament Neumarkt Cafe Werner March 13, 2016, accessed May 5, 2019.
  6. ↑ The physics of the Wiesn: Now the slope comes into play sueddeutsche.de, September 24, 2018, accessed May 5, 2019.