The UK and South Africa are gearing up for the end result of a £24-million project, which will see the ultimate jet- and rocket- powered car, the Bloodhound, whip up dust in the Northern Cape as it prepares to break the world land-speed record.

The Bloodhound, which is hoping to reach 1 600 km/h in 2015, is being constructed in Bristol in the UK and boasts 3 500 components.

Bloodhound supersonic car education pro-gramme director Dave Rowley says the car will initially go through test runs at slower speeds in preparation for the 1 600 km challenge and will be driven by Andy Green, known as the fastest man of earth.

“We can’t wait for the car to get here,” says Rowley, who has been in South Africa for over two years, building up momentum for the run and involving schoolchildren across the Northern Cape in projects that have been sparked by the Bloodhound.

A simulator and education projects that were developed in tune with the Bloodhound’s run were shown off at Cape Town’s Victoria & Albert Waterfront last weekend, with around 300 excited schoolchildren fascinated by the idea that the car was expected to run at 1.4 times the speed of sound.

Hakskeenpan, which is a massive dried-out lake in the far Northern Cape, about 200 km north- west of Upington, close to the Namibian border, has been chosen as the site for this spectacle in late 2015 or 2016.

The track that has been prepared for the record-breaking attempt also involves the surrounding community. About 300 people, most of them women, have been employed to clear 6 000 t of stones and rocks to create 20-km-long and 1.1-km-wide area.

Thousands of schoolchildren, mainly from the Northern Cape, have been enrolled in projects ahead of the arrival of the car.

“They’ve been working on virtual science labs. They’ve been designing their own cars that go on a track [and] they’re measuring speed and resistance. “It’s getting both the teachers and kids very excited,” says Edit Microsystems MD Peter Labuschagne, whose comapany is working with the Bloodhound team.

The main aim is to inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers, particularly given the shortage of these skills in South Africa. Classroom subjects from science, technology, engineering and mathematics to geography and English are being supported.

Rowley says the Bloodhound project is a constant learning curve, as there have been 12 changes made to the external shape of the car over the past three years.

“The car still needs to lose weight. “There’s been a lot of collaboration by com-panies on how to make it smaller and thinner,” he tells Engineering News.

Rowley says a major challenge has been how to keep the wheels on the ground, while driving faster than the speed of sound.

He adds that the Bloodhound project is “unique in the world of advanced engineering” as its research design, manufacture and testing are shared through the www.bloodhoundssc.com website.