One very fun uncle made his young nephew’s dream come true by building a rollercoaster in the backyard that was based on the 11-year-old’s design.
Leigh Downing used the sketches made by his nephew Calden Ashley to bring to life a 230-foot-long ‘Big Dipper’.
Leigh, alongside his 20-year-old son Charlie, used plastic pipes for the rails. They then put together old bits of scrap metal and wood to make the frame of the coaster.
The inventive duo even used an old wooden cutting board as the seat of the ride which circles Leigh’s green space in Llandyrnog, Wales.
They built it as a surprise for little Calden who was fed-up after being unable to see his friends during summer vacation with its bummer lockdown restrictions.
Former engineer Leigh said, “Calden has been rollercoaster mad for as long as I can remember.
“Even before he was tall enough to ride, he was designing them on a computer. It all started a couple of years ago when I had an operation and was off work for a couple of months. I gave Calden a wooden marble rollercoaster kit I had when I was a child. He was so thrilled with it.
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“My son Charlie built him a small wooden rollercoaster that he could ride.
“He was absolutely ecstatic with the end result, but a couple of years on had got a little bored with it. We hatched this latest idea during lockdown… We did it all in eight days.”
Charlie, who passed his maths GCSE when he was 11-years-old and skipped his A Levels to go straight to university to study maths and science, is a hobby mechanic.
Leigh, who has a background in engineering, added: “We said to Calden, you do the design. He designed it from start to finish including every twist, turn and bunny hop.
Leigh said the build has brought Charlie, Calden, and himself together. He added: “I feel we did something absolutely amazing.”
“Our next plan is a full steel rollercoaster with a corkscrew and a loop which, of course, will rely on Charlie’s maths degree coupled with Calden’s rollercoaster designs.”
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