Andy Green, the fastest man in the world since 1997 and soon to beat his own world record in 2015, travelled across continents to spread the word of Project Bloodhound at this year’s SciFest.
Andy Green, the fastest man in the world since 1997 and soon to beat his own world record in 2015, travelled across continents to spread the word of Project Bloodhound at this year’s SciFest.
But Green’s first stop before travelling up Monument was Ntsika Secondary School in Extension 7 of Joza.
The buzz of uncertain excitement was in the air.
Scholars crammed into a hot classroom and waited patiently for Andy Green’s multimedia, interactive lecture on the mysterious jet-powered car.
He posed the first question to the quizzical faces, “What challenges do you think I will encounter driving the car?”
One eager student piped up, “Driving drunk!” Green smiled, “Yes definitely: not driving drunk. But also, not being scared."
Green enthusiastically demonstrated what could go wrong if the car’s front or back angles were too high or too low.
The end outcome was always the same: a failed mission and potential fatal danger for Green as the car would crash or rip apart.
It was a scary yet stimulating thought for the nurturing engineers in the room. The point of the lecture was to pass on information about the Bloodhound Project, but most importantly to show the young scholars how and why science and maths is fun and actually easy.
At the end, Green applauded the eager students: “You are all now experts on Newton’s three laws, the geography of deserts and building a supersonic car in just under an hour."
Madeleine Schoeman, the school’s principal, believes the scholars responded very well to the project.
“It is good that the scholars are exposed to diversity such as the Bloodhound project,” she said.
“We were so fortunate that through the outreach project we were given this opportunity to hear them speak, and we appreciate it."
