We had an interesting departure from the sat at a table format on The Cool Stuff Collective future tech section this week. Vicky (now on twitter 🙂 ) and I ended up outside in the playground and we had a guest expert along.
In this show we got to talk to the Bloodhound SSC (Supersonic car team). A project aiming to build a 1,000mph car but also to spark interest in schools and colleges across the country in the fun and future in Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics. (I.e. we share a common goal in that respect).
The car is still being built, and obviously it would be tricky to fire a huge 1,000 mile an hour rocket in a school playground.
I got to be a bit more presenter and a bit less guest and intro and talk to Gerry from Bloodhound SSC. We had a scale model of the actual rocket/jet car to talk about but then we got onto the big experiment.

A wire was put up along the playground and Gerry had electronic ignition rockets that he places in two identical looking models of the SSC. The aim to show the audience that how heavy something is really changes the performance of a rocket even in tiny models.
As you can see from my behind the scenes video of the initial practice (which made Vicky jump and splutter a bit 🙂 ) and then one of the many firings we did for the record the kids thought it was really exciting. That is the start to an interest in science.

When I was growing up I remember lots of things about world speed records, seeing the old cars at Beaulieu, having Top Trumps sets of crazy fast boats, bikes, planes and cars etc.
We all had fun doing this which is an important factor in making it interesting and fun for the audience too.
More than ever though this one put us amongst the kids and I got to have some great chats with them about science and tech. Being at the school is not just a case of using it as a scene, its about getting a chance to inspire some kids to. We could almost be a cool stuff collective roadshow doing that in various places live, with the TV show as the secondary product.
The show is up and live for a few weeks on the ITV Player
As the next few shows air we have got even bigger with future tech pieces. Only 2 more to record (though lots more to air yet ) 🙂