BLOODHOUND SSC Competition - Primary

Why are some things fast?

To build the supersonic car, the BLOODHOUND team need to understand how to make things go fast. The car will need to go very fast indeed if it is to beat the world record. One thousand miles per hour is more than fourteen times faster than a normal car travels along a motorway, and four times faster than the top speed of a racing car. If you could run at one thousand miles per hour you would be able to go across four football pitches in a single second, so it's very, very quick.

How do you think we can make something go fast?

An object can move quickly if it is pushed forward with lots of power. It may be moved by a person or by an engine. A car is moved forward by an engine, but a bike is moved forward by a person pedalling. The harder the object is pushed forward, the faster it will go, so, for example, a very strong man would be able to pedal a bike much faster than a small child.

Sometimes the shape of an object can help it go fast. A racing car has a very special shape to help it move easily through the air. You can look at our racing car picture here and read about how it reaches high speeds of two hundred and fifty miles per hour. In the same way, the special shape of some aeroplanes' wings helps them move quickly. They are thin to help them push through the air. You can see this shape on gliders and paper aeroplanes.

At Dstl, we need to know how to make things go fast. Our job is to use science to help and protect soldiers in the Army, sailors in the Navy and pilots in the Royal Air Force (RAF). We need to know how to make planes, ships, tanks and rockets move quickly.

We would like to hear your ideas on how to make something move faster. Your ideas can be as imaginative as you like. Perhaps you could push an object forward using an army of hamsters running around in wheels? Maybe you could design a fast object the shape of one huge aeroplane wing? We'd love to know what you would do! Our competition question can be found here. Please take a look and send us your ideas.