The Kaohsiung-based National Science and Technology Museum yesterday unveiled a giant spiraling slide, which lets people slide from the top to the bottom in 12 seconds at a top speed of 67kph.
The museum said the slide is 18m high and 46m long, adding that it worked with Nan E. Design Corp, a private contractor, to import the slide.
The giant spiraling slide helped draw about 800,000 visitors to London’s Tate Modern art gallery within three months when it was unveiled to the public last year at the gallery’s Turbine Hall, the museum said.
Photo: Huang Chia-lin, Taipei Times
Taiwan has become the first nation in Asia to showcase the slide, the museum said.
Museum director-general Chen Shiunn-shyang (陳訓祥) said that the slide enables visitors to not only experience the fun of sliding down at a high speed, but to learn about at least four physics subjects: free fall, centrifugal force, friction and centripetal force.
Children who played on the slide said they had fun, adding that it was both fun and scary to slide from the top to the bottom at such a high speed.
Chen said that the slide was made of stainless steel and acrylic glass.
To use the slide, visitors have to take the elevator to the fourth floor of the museum to reach the top, he said.
“They would then be told to cover the lower part of their body with linen cloth sacks to reduce friction before they can slide down at a speed of 67kph,” he said, adding that visitors who want to use the slide have to be at least 1.25m tall and weigh less than 150kg.
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