At Priestlands we are using Bloodhound to inspire and further develop our year 8 project known as Jet Flyers. We have be evolving this project for the past few years using the ‘Mission’ TV documentary based on Thrust SSC. We are now shifting our attention to the use of Bloodhound SSC as our source of inspiration for the pupils. I have included a few photographs of the Jet Flyers to help give you an idea of what we are doing. The pupils are given a block of timber 25mm x 25mm x 250mm. An 18mm diameter piece of dowel is glued into the end of the block of wood. A metal eye is positioned towards the front of the block of wood. The pupils are then given free range to research and design the best profile for their own jet flyer. Once shaped, the jet flyer has to be painted appropriately. We have 2 aluminium engine housings which push onto the 18mm dowel, inside which we place a CO₂ bulb. We have built a crude wooden starting gate which is attached to the side of a school building (Starting gate is our next project for development). Two lines stretch from the starting gate across a 66m distance and attach to a finishing gate. We have built an electronic timing gate to time each run. The start gate pierces the CO₂ bulbs which in turn propel the jet flyers along the lines.
 
The homework tasks are linked to the History of Speed, Aeroplane Wings, Donald Campbell, Where is Thrust SCC Now?, Current Air Land & Water Speed Records and more recently Richard Jenkins and Ecotricity.
 
We currently run this as a Summer term project with year 8 pupils. We are a Design and Technology department 1.7 workshop based teachers, 1.4 textiles based teachers and 1.6 catering based teachers. Jet flyers are run through the Workshop based teaching.
 
That is a brief explanation of what we are currently doing, I hope it makes sense.
 
Thanks Again,
 
Steve Gillett
 
P.S. We named the orange and blue Jet Flyer ‘Fred Bassett’ before we remembered he was a Beagle and not a Bloodhound, the only bloodhound we could think of was ‘Droopy’ and somehow that seemed a little inappropriate.