Some kids tree houses in their backyards. Others forts. Or hockey rinks. Or skateboard ramps.

Thornhill's David Chesney built a roller coaster.

It took four years but the 19-year-old Queen's University engineering student, working with parts and materials found at any big box hardware store, assembled 28 metres worth of steel-plated wooden track with two 3.6-metre drops. He built the steel car with know-how he acquired working at a metal door factory last summer, and he did it all with tools borrowed from an uncle.

"The Minotaur," as he calls it, because, after all, every thrill ride has to have a scary name, whips the rider backwards and forwards at 20 km/h.

Which doesn't sound very fast until you feel yourself hurtling at the family home's roof.

"My dad didn't like the idea at all from the beginning," Chesney admits. "Mom was kinda, 'Uhhhh, I guess so.' I don't think that either of them understood the scope of what I had in mind."

Neither did he.

"It just got bigger," he recalls, adding that it cost, all in, about $3,000. "Then it got to the point where my parents said, 'It's huge but you've gotten this far so just finish it and then take it down after.' "

Chesney says he's been fascinated by roller coasters and other thrill rides as long as he could remember. He would build them with his K'Nex construction toy sets, and would head for Canada's Wonderland every chance he could get.

Although he insists he's just "an average teenager," he didn't spend all his time at the amusement park waiting in line and scarfing down junk food.

"Yes, it's cool to get on the rides, but for me it's looking at all the details that nobody else sees in them. That's what I like," he says. "Most people ask if it's safe while I'm asking what is holding the lapbar in or why is this wheel so big. I am asking all these questions and trying to find the answers."

All of which has made him set his career trajectory towards becoming a thrill ride designer and engineer.

"It's not a huge market but there is a ton of new thrill rides being built each year," he explains. "Amusement parks need to keep attendance up and so there's always a demand for the next biggest or tallest or coolest new ride."

As for the Minotaur, which has its own Facebook page, its rocking and rolling days may be screeching to an end.

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"My dad wants it out of the by the end of the summer but I don't really want to take it down so I'm trying to find a new home for it," Chesney says. "It's a pretty cool thing to have and I don't want to see it turn it into a scrap pile."