By BLOODHOUND Ambassador David Hanson
Chafyn Grove is a primary school in Salisbury with over 300 students. Our group was 28 children who had just finished their exams and were about to move on to secondary school next term. I volunteered for this activity after a very wet and windy day at Santa Pod but today was a beautiful day, the rain had stopped, the wind had gone and the sun was shining on the playing field and the freshly painted running track.
I had helped at a school rocket day before where they had already built their cars and “just wanted help to race the cars”, but on the day only the teacher’s car made it to the end of the track so I was keen to do it again.
Turning words into action
I arrived early at Chafyn to meet Jas Thandi, Model Rocket Car Challenge Co-ordinator (pictured right), who had previously trained me, and the other ambassadors Ade Irwin and Sam Thandi. First I did the BH presentation. Then, after a quick introduction to the Rocket Car Challenge, the children were given foam blocks and got down to the serious business of designing their cars.
They worked in pairs and marked out the rough shape on their blocks which Ade cut out for them on a band saw. Then it was down to sandpapering the cars into their final, aerodynamic shape. We were lucky that the students could do their sanding outside to keep us all from turning blue from the dust!
I always enjoy answering all the questions, but it is particularly interesting to eavesdrop on the children talking about why theirs is going to be the best car and you see then how they have absorbed so much about what they’ve heard about BLOODHOUND and applied what they have learned to their designs.
After sanding they were keen to paint, mostly on the cars! And then there was time for drying (i.e. lunch) and fitting the wheels and eyes by the ambassadors. At this point we could see that the group had made 14 good cars and there were lots of different designs, from the minimalistic to the full-on diamond-encrusted model.
Setting up and racing the cars
After lunch Jas started to set up the track on the playground. We identified where we would have to avoid dips and holes and one point where we would need to control access from a doorway. Just then a snake of yellow-clad Year 2’s made its way across the track. That didn’t happen at Santa Pod! We tried again but next came another snake of even smaller children, this time all in red. It turned out there was a sports day, postponed from the previous day and now happening at the same time as our rocket car event.
Fortunately we were able to relocate to the netball court where Ade, Sam and Jas set up the track. Ade was launch controller, looking very much the part in his REME fatigues, and Sam operated the stopwatch for measuring the speed.
We were ready to launch rocket cars at last: 14 cars, 28 children, smoke, flames and…..Wow! Their cars reached speeds up to an amazing 48mph.
It was great day all round which we hope they will remember when they go to their new schools and when they see new records set by BLOODHOUND in South Africa.
Find out more
If you are interested in becoming a BLOODHOUND Ambassador, you can find out more on the BLOODHOUND Ambassadors’ pages.
If you are interested in a visit from the BLOODHOUND Ambassadors, please see our Education page.
