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Bloodhound Supersonic Car (SSC)
– a cross-curricular extravaganza
In January, we welcomed eighty Year 5 pupils and associated staff fromWolvercote Primary and
Cutteslowe Primary to join our 2nd Year in a day of cross-curricular workshops with Bloodhound
SSC – an exciting global project to construct the world’s first 1000mph supersonic car and
aimed at reinvigorating the teaching of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics
(STEM) in schools.
The day began with a talk given by
STEM Communicator Mike Ford in the
Salata Pavilion, in which Bloodhound’s
vision was explained to the pupils. All were
thoroughly impressed by the team’s current
endeavours to compete internationally
in building the fastest car on the planet.
However, it was their desire to share such a
feat with a young audience, and on a vast
global scale, that was most striking. It soon
became clear that their vision extended
far beyond breaking theWorld Land
Speed Record. It was, above all, focused on
inspiring the next generation of scientists,
engineers and technological innovators
– something they seek to achieve “in the
most exciting way possible”.
The children spent half the day with
the engineers and education team from
Bloodhound designing, building and racing
model rocket cars. In pairs, each with a
small desk equipped with only a ruler, a
pen, a small square of sandpaper and a
rectangular block of polystyrene, and with
a little help from the team at Bloodhound,
they began to carve out the proportions of
their rocket cars – smoothing the surfaces
and sanding down the edges with great
precision. There were many ingenious
designs, with an assortment of shapes and
sizes, spoilers and skirtings, all carefully
decorated with racing decals and team
names.
After the wheels were attached, the little
fleet of rocket cars were ready for racing
and, along with their budding inventors,
relocated to a small length of track on
the school field.With each car secured to
a length of fishing gut and a small rocket
inserted at its rear all that was left between
the crowd of enthusiastic racers and their
explosive first run was the countdown and
… blast off!
The cars were rocket-propelled along
the track at a tremendous speed with the
winning team averaging 60mph along a 20
metre track. The model racing effectively
demonstrated a scaled down version of
Bloodhound’s supersonic car – though
to what extent the small track on the
school field may be compared with the
Hakskeen Pan, a pancake-flat clay lake in
South Africa where Bloodhound do their
testing – is questionable! However, it did
teach the children about the importance of
aerodynamics and power-to-weight ratios
in a memorable and exciting way.
The second half of the day was spent
with the English and Art departments
(thanks to HL and EJO), where pupils
explored the wider themes of speed,
travel and transport creating colourful
illustrations depicting speed and using
calligrams imaginatively.
The Bloodhound team are hoping to
break the 1000mph barrier in 2017.
MHT
“A fantastic day,
my favouritepart
was the rocket car
buildbecause it
was a competition
tomake the fastest
model rocket car. It
was really fun!”
S u m m e r F i e l d s
2 0 1 5 – 2 0 1 6
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