Bloodhound is winning students’ hearts and minds

The SuperSonic Car captured students’ imaginations during a recent visit, while a full-scale model of the car made of K’nex was a head-turner at the Big Bang Fair.

The Bloodhound SuperSonic Car (SSC) impressed students at Simon Balle School in Hertford, when it arrived for a daylong, engineering-themed workshop held at the school on 23 March.

The full-scale model of the Bloodhound SSC car was on display to help raise awareness among schoolchildren about the project and its aims to inspire a generation about science and engineering.



Primarily aimed at year nine students, the car’s visit gave pupils an opportunity to explore its different components and take part in activities on 3D manufacturing and rocket cars.



The Institution’s Marketing Operations Director, James Hobbs, commented: “We need to encourage more young people to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM), to ensure we have the right skills to keep the country’s economy growing and to tackle the big challenges facing humankind like rising population and climate change.



“At the moment the number of people pursuing STEM careers is just not enough to meet future demands, which is why inspiring young people through the Bloodhound SSC project is so important.

“We hope that by showcasing the Bloodhound SSC car pupils at Simon Balle will realise the hugely exciting prospects there are in pursuing a career in engineering and STEM more generally.”



The six students (pictured above) who won the rocket car challenge were: Mary Gibbard, Amy Ralph, Willow Stone, Lillie Thomas, Nathan Gibbs and Dylan Carr.

Big Bang Fair 2015
Bloodhound also played a prominent role at the Big Bang Fair 2015. The fair was held 11-14 March, in Birmingham, and showcased the largest celebration of science, technology, engineering and maths to young people in the UK.

The Institution had a joint stand with Bloodhound SSC and promoted education toolkits to over 100 teachers and more than 50,000 students over the course of the event.

Bloodhound also exhibited a full-scale model car built from K’nex pieces (pictured below), making it the largest K’nex toy in the world with over 383,422 parts and taking 1,287 hours to assemble. This car will now be exhibited at the Coventry Transport Museum next to the current world record holder, Thrust SSC.

The Institution is one of the key sponsors of Bloodhound SSC, which aims to break the world land speed record of 763mph later this year before its 1,000mph run in South Africa in 2016.

Find out how to volunteer to be a ‪‎Bloodhound ‬ambassador.