When it comes to ground-breaking engineering in the South West, it seems one land-speed world record just isn’t enough. The ambitious Bristol-based Bloodhound supersonic car (SSC) team is now aiming to break the 1,000mph barrier.
Wing commander Andy Green, who will be driving the Bloodhound SSC (pictured, right), is giving a talk at UWE’s Exhibition & Conference Centre tonight to tell a lucky audience all about the challenges and obstacles they will face on the lead up to the record attempt.
“In developing this car to attempt 1,000 mph, the Bloodhound team has relied critically on the technical support of a world-class group of organisations and sponsors including UWE Bristol”
The Bloodhound team has already been responsible for pushing the Thrust super sonic car to the world-record breaking land speed of 763mph. So this new attempt, if successful, will be an even more dramatic achievement in engineering and technology in the South West.
Andy explains, “Bloodhound SSC is part F1 car, part supersonic jet fighter and part next-generation space rocket. In developing this car to attempt 1,000mph, the Bloodhound team has relied critically on the technical support of a world-class group of organisations and sponsors. UWE Bristol was one of the first to join the project, and we are very grateful for all the help and support we’ve received in this astonishing global ‘Engineering Adventure’.”
The lecture will also celebrate one of the student projects with a short talk by David Dunnings and Daniel Weston. They are both in their third year of a Games Technology degree and are part of UWE Bristol’s graduate-driven games studio, PlayWest.
“At UWE Bristol we have seen a doubling of student numbers in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering since we started the partnership with Bloodhound”
With support from lecturers, David and Daniel designed the ‘Bloodhound Inspector’ telemetry software which will be used by the Bloodhound engineering team to observe and record the critical sensor data from the car during its record-breaking run.
Through PlayWest, the student team also designed a ‘Bloodhound Presenter’ – an educational guide of the car’s systems based on the ‘Inspector’ software. You can check it out in more detail in the video below:
Dr. John Lanham, who leads the project for UWE Bristol says: “One of the key objectives of Bloodhound SSC is to raise interest in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) subjects amongst young people, in order to meet future skills shortages in the UK economy.”
“At UWE Bristol we have seen a doubling of student numbers in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering since we started the partnership with Bloodhound. While national trends have been strong, we are seeing increases above these which confirms the positive impact the project is having.”
This extremely popular lecture is unfortunately now booked up. However, you can catch it via UWE’s podcast page shortly after the talk. Don’t miss out on future talks – stay up to date with UWE lectures by following the UWE events page or follow UWE on Twitter: @UWEEvents. You can also follow the Bloodhound team’s progress directly: @Bloodhound_SSC.
[Image credits: Flock, Siemens and Stefan Marjoram]
