One of the teachers at St Nicholas’s invited me to run a Bloodhound morning with her class of year 4, 5 and 6 children.

After the usual morning admin, the school hall was set up and the first group arrived.  We began be investigating how a feather and a pebble would fall when released at the same time from the same height.  When asked which would hit the floor first, all of the children correctly said that it would be the pebble.  We then discussed the reasons why the feather was slower to fall.  The feather and the pebble were each put into an ice cream tub and the question was asked again.  This time the answers were more varied.

Then it was on to a cones experiment unashamedly pinched from a demonstration given by Gerry Heather at one of the 1K Club days at the University of the West of England.  Each child made two paper cones of the same shape but of different sizes and investigated how they would fall if released from the same height at the same time.  We discussed aerodynamics and the need for Bloodhound SSC to be as streamlined as possible.

The main activity was making “rocket-powered” card models of the Bloodhound car, kindly provided by the project, and seeing who could get his/her car to travel the furthest.  This produced much rivalry between the children with most of them vying for the lead position.

After about 50-55 minutes the second group arrived for its session followed by a third group.

It was a good morning with all the children taking an active part in the discussions and the activities.  And we only over-inflated two or three balloons, much to the shock of the children blowing them up!

Chris Henley
Bloodhound Ambassador