St John’s rocket cars blast off to regional final

St John’s Year 7 Design and Technology students finished the Spring Term by trialling the model rocket cars they had designed as part of a nationwide STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) competition called Race for the Line.

The winning team, who call themselves ‘The Muppets’,  produced a lightweight and aerodynamic car that flew across the track in a staggering 0.99 seconds reaching an amazing 53.71mph! The team will represent St John’s at the Regional Finals at RNAS in Yeovilton in May.

The Race for the Line competition is inspired by the Bloodhound SSC, the British supersonic land vehicle currently in development, whose aim is to achieve a new world land speed record.

This year’s students have a hard act to follow as last year the St John’s students went all the way to the national final and achieved fifth place out of 78,000 entrants.

Gary England, St John’s teacher and STEM Co-ordinator told marlborough.news: “This year, our Year 7 students worked in teams of four, designing and making their model cars out of a cool black styrofoam block.”

“Students combined their design ideas and made templates of the body shape. Their wheel designs were then laser cut out of MDF before being assembled. Students then shaped, sanded and smoothed their blocks into their own design, being careful not to breach H&S requirements by cutting away too much material into the restricted zones.” 

“All cars were checked and approved by our Year 12 Product Design students ensuring the cars were safe to race. Rockets were primed and inserted into rear of the cars, safety check all complete. Then across lunchtime, Year 7s joined the safety team in the tennis courts and raced their cars along the 25m track.” 

“This competition, along with many other STEM activities across all years at St John’s, gives students the ability to work in a team, build different skills and put their understanding of Design, Technology, Science and Maths into practice in this design challenge.”