MIDHURST Mother College students rocketed past teams from schools across West Sussex to win the Forest School Rocket Car Competition.

The event, which is part of the Bloodhound Education Programme, is supported by engineers who have been working on Bloodhound SSC, a supersonic car that is designed not only to go faster than the speed of sound but to achieve 1,000mph.

The Bloodhound Project is using this record attempt to inspire the next generation to enjoy, explore and get involved in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).

The teams had a few hours to complete the task of making their own Bloodhound model from a block of foam, with students demonstrating their ability to work as a team, demonstrating their knowledge and thought processes through drawings, annotations, design ideas, construction of the vehicle and be able to suggest modifications to their cars.

As a final challenge, the model vehicles fuelled by small rocket chargers, raced on a launch system across the Forest School tennis courts.

A combination of good scores from the construction round, and a winning time in the race-off, saw year nine students Saya Patel, Oliver Arnold and James Purve (pictured) win the event for Midhurst.