Our new Education Centre in Gloucestershire has hosted a number of events already, including our ever-popular Rocket Car workshops during the Christmas holiday season and busy visitor sessions running alongside the recent Bloodhound LSR Supporters Day.
Rocket Car workshops
One of our most enduring and popular activities are the Family Rocket Car workshops. Two more were run in the recent school Christmas holidays, attended by enthusiastic children and their equally enthusiastic parents.
The workshops include an introductory presentation about the world land speed record, the Bloodhound project, and research and development in general, but this was the first at our HQ to be able to talk about Bloodhound’s recent high speed testing success. The Education team also talked about making rockets cars, including the importance of considering shape, weight and aerodynamics.
Children then went on to build their own rocket cars, which were raced outside and timed, reaching top speeds of over 50mph!
“We’ve never had two identical rocket cars at our workshops,” said Anthony Rhodes, STEM Communicator. “You can always tell what influences they’ve had by the shapes of their cars – it’s fascinating!”
Families also got to visit our new exhibition space, including the heritage area showing the history of Bloodhound, and try out the Bloodhound Driving Experience and virtual reality headsets.
Join us at our next Family Rocket Car Experience.
Bloodhound LSR Supporters Day
On Sunday 26th January, Bloodhound threw open its doors to let around 500 supporters see the car after its return from South Africa, before it was stripped down and cleaned. In conjunction, the Bloodhound Education Team and Ambassadors welcomed visitors for part of each session into our Education Centre to take part in activities and explore the Heritage area of our new HQ, along with watching the videos and presentations around the Centre.
Among the activities on offer were the Bloodhound Driving Experience, where family members competed against each other to achieve the fastest speed, and our virtual reality headsets that completely immerse viewers in the action – highlights include video footage from Andy Green’s cockpit during low-speed testing at Newquay and also video looking down from the top of the tailfin as the jet engine propels the car at over 200mph.
Children also enjoyed hands-on experience making and racing balloon cars and K’Nex cars on a track using air cannons to propel them.
A new addition they were able to explore was our additive manufacturing workshop which introduces 3D printing technology. They could see a 3D printer in action making mini replicas of Bloodhound LSR and use 3D printed car sections and wheels to design and build their own car and then fire it down the runway using the air cannon. In the workshop, sections of the car are 3D printed in different densities and therefore different masses, which children can put together along with different wheels to explore how variations in centre of gravity and wheels affect how a vehicle performs.
“Some of our visitors loved the workshops and activities so much that they didn’t want to leave!” reported Anthony. “So much so that some came back later after seeing the car as they wanted to do more. What was clear was how inspired they were after seeing the car and visiting us – afterwards, some of the children were thrilled to see the large blue containers outside simply because they found out they had come all the way from South Africa with some of the kit inside.”
Visit us / Book a workshop
If you would like to visit us and run an activity at the Education Centre or book us to bring a workshop to your school, college or club, please get in touch.