The Big Bang Fair 2014.

The Big Bang Fair.

The NEC in Birmingham has been a home from home for me recently, the Photography Show followed by Cruft’s and then last week the Big Bang Fair.

The Big Bang Fair is the largest celebration of science, technology, engineering and maths for young people in the UK, I was working there with the K’Nex/ Bloodhound SSC (world land speed record super sonic car) project.

In the shadow of the impressive 13.5 metre long, 1000mph Bloodhound show car, students took part in the Bloodhound Racing Challenge. The challenge being to build their own compressed air powered racing cars from K’Nex parts and then race them against the clock down a 12 metre drag strip.

It’s fair to say some were more succesful than others… the ‘less succesful’ vehicles tending to fly off the track at high speed in a cloud of wreckage..although in retrospect I think dramatic crashes were exactly what many of the students were hoping for…after all it was the ‘Big Bang’ Fair.