Words by Dan Johns and Steve Lewis @ Bloodhound SSC

How often do you find yourself wishing you were 14 again?  Space hoppers and Chopper bikes aside: not all that often I bet.  However, that’s exactly the sort of musing that some of the work currently being done in education has been provoking. Hardly surprising as ‘its not like it was in our day’.

The land speed record rules mean the car has to do two runs within an hour. Between the runs the rocket has to be changed for the return run. City of Bristol College lectures used that as the inspiration to create an integrated learning experience. The robotic rocket swap project brings together many of the engineering challenges along with a practical problem for the Bloodhound team.

As great an activity as it most certainly is, the really interesting bit is how it was delivered as a result of working in collaboration with industry and a unique engineering project. Consequently this work will be made widely available via the internet on an open-source basis, with all organisations involved posting the CAD models, detail drawings and STL files for free download.

Dan Johns, Bloodhound University Program Leader, said ‘It’s very exciting to help schools and colleges to not only use 3D Printing platforms, but also provide them with Open Source applications which help them learn faster by minimising the cost barriers’….’this technology has to connect with the next generation, before they get taught conventional engineering methods’

So how did this all come about? There are a number of players involved but here it is in a nutshell.

• Bloodhound Education Team meet with City of Bristol College lecturers Tim Nutman and Joe Sklenar and scope out the project concept
• Tim and Joe produce a working model which is displayed at a Bloodhound sponsors event
• 3D Systems Bits From Bytes are also there and donate a BFB3000 on long term loan to help with further development work
• Bloodhound Education Team secures funding from LSIS (Learning and skills Improvement Service) to be released to colleges producing Bloodhound related educational materials
• City of Bristol College successfully apply for the funding which enables Tim and Joe to further develop the activity 
• 3D Systems Bits From Bytes, Bloodhound Education Team, LSIS and COBC all have a great resource available for free download

As with any collaborative initiative, the success of this is down to each organisation having a champion to drive it forward. None worked harder than Tim Nutman and Joe Sklenar the lecturers who put in the hours of design and testing to make the concept a reality. Using their experience with 14-19 year old learners they have created something which will hopefully go some way towards inspiring the next generation of engineers and designers.

Industry partnering with education: it’s a powerful thing. Probably why we have noticed in our travels that this is an increasing trend. It seems that recently many more companies are placing a higher importance on engaging with the education community. With the widening skills gap in the UK and work experience becoming non-mandatory for secondary schools this is a timely awakening.