A workshop organised collaboratively between The Institute of Physics (IOP), Aspire schools partnership and Bloodhound Education received some great feedback from those attending. 

Hosted by Nailsea School in North Somerset and delivered by Cerian Angharad the local Physics Network Coordinator, the evening session consisted of the IOP’s popular ‘Dragster Workshop’.

The teachers from schools all over North Somerset attended in their own time and, thanks to the generosity if the IOP, all walked away with their own mechanism for launching air powered cars.  This great piece of kit allows teachers to enliven learning in science by giving the students a fun activity to base their experiments around.  All feedback sheets from the workshop participants indicated they would be incorporating this into their activities.

Thanks also to Graphic Science the local STEMNET contract holders for advertising this to their members.

Full instructions on how to build your own launcher and the associated physics teaching and learning materials can be found on both the IOP and Bloodhound websites.

www.bloodhoundssc.com/education/topics_to_use_in_lessons.cfm

www.talkphysics.org/pg/groups/20121/dragster-racers/

The equipment also lends itself to D&T projects as a means of powering vehicles.  In fact the purpose of the workshop was to equip North Somerset schools in preparation for a design and manufacture competition for all year 7 students in the region. 

The competition has been organised by the Aspire partnership and will run through terms 5 and 6.  Students will use CAD to design the best chassis using any material of their choice and compete for a place in the final.  The best teams from each school will then come up to the Bloodhound Technical Centre for a grand finals day and a behind the scenes look at the iconic engineering project.

If you would like to run a similar competition or get Bloodhound involved with your school, please contact Dawn Fitt the Education Delivery Director [email protected]

For further information on how your school or college can get involved with the IOP, please follow this link: www.iop.org/education