This time of the year, there is a heavy demand on the BLOODHOUND Education Team to visit schools, so I was asked to help out on a particular busy day - I was asked to go along to the Warwickshire regional final of the Junior Engineer for Britain K'NEX Challenge in Rugby organised by Imagineering. "Don't worry" encouraged Dawn Fitt, "you will just be representing the BLOODHOUND team. Oh, and can you give a five minute talk about the project to the children". Two days before the event, this came over as a five to ten minute presentation.

What a great morning! As the excited children arrived, I chatted to them all about what they had done, but all they wanted to know is what they had to do this time. Soon all was clear, they were given a small K'NEX car and had to build a transport plane for it - the plane had to have a ramp for the car to be loaded, somewhere for the crew to sit and wheels to move around.

The children were encouraged to plan their creation on paper (picture above), but couldn't wait to dip into the tempting box of K'NEX bits to get started (picture right). I was amazed how focussed the children were - at one point, they were offered orange drinks in the next room, but not one of them moved away from their task. In the end, the teachers delivered their drinks to them! They were all working very well in pairs and after a couple of hours, time was called.

While the planes were being judged, it was time for my presentation - and the requirement was now 20 minutes, with about 50 children and all their teachers and parents eagerly awaiting! Oh dear! Fortunately, I had sorted out a couple of short videos of ThrustSSC to tag on to my BLOODHOUND presentation - and as most of them had been to the Coventry Museum of British Transport just down the road, they all knew about Thrust2 and ThrustSSC. Although they look worn out from their challenge, they loved it and asked lots of interesting questions.

The winners were announced and went away with their goodies (picture right)... and on to the next round...