Orchard Primary School, Castle Donington

Report by Mark Hancox, Rolls-Royce BLOODHOUND Ambassador

In the summer term, six Rolls-Royce BLOODHOUND Ambassadors from Derby and three independent BLOODHOUND Ambassadors travelled to Orchard Primary School in Castle Donington, Leicestershire, to deliver a full day of activities.
Our aim was to run Balloon Car activities for the whole school of approximately 240 children, aged 4 to 10 years old. We used Balloon Car kits, sixty of which had been supplied free of charge by the IMechE, and the rest from junk modelling materials in order to limit costs for the school.

Getting the children and cars ready

Different age kids respond in different ways, so we did separate introductions for Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2, which included:
•    discussion of the Bloodhound project (using the BLOODHOUND “Race” Video)
•    wider discussion of engineering/technology
•    interactive demonstration of how a jet engine works.

Following those introductions, and with support from the Ambassadors, the children assembled the Balloon Cars were assembled in each class, with approximately 30 children in each. The KS1 classes had about 1.5 hours for building and testing using the kits, while the KS2 classes spent about 1.25 hours making cars using the junk modelling materials. The numbers meant we had two Ambassadors per class to support initial KS1 kit building, plus one Ambassador per class later on when all classes were building/testing, with one roving Ambassador to deal with queries/resourcing issues.

And racing their models

By the afternoon we were ready to race the Balloon Cars in sets of 2 classes, so 4 sets in total. The timing was tight to do whole school, but it was achieved with good planning and organisation. There were certificates for set winners and runners-up and prizes for overall winners and runners-up.

Credits

Our thanks to Orchard Primary School for the good support from the teachers and teaching assistants which allowed us to run a successful event, and to all the Ambassadors who got stuck in and reacted well to the challenges of supporting each group. The six Rolls-Royce BLOODHOUND Ambassadors from Derby were Mark Hancox, Stephen Dimelow, Sharon Evans, Matthew Drage, Scott Rhodes and Sam Owens, and the three independent BLOODHOUND Ambassadors were Lyn Proctor, Simon Proctor and Georgina Ellis.

Thanks, too, to the IMechE for the Balloon Car kits.

Become an ambassador

If you like the sound of getting involved with this kind of project, why not become a BLOODHOUND Ambassador? Found out more about our Ambassador Programme and how to get involved.