Students meet Super Soaker inventor
SUPER-SOAKER inventor Lonnie Johnson shared some engineering expertise with students from Hinckley at London’s renowned Royal Society.
Mechanical and nuclear engineer Johnson, who worked on Nasa’s Galileo mission to Jupiter as well as creating the enduringly popular high-power water gun, spent time with students from Redmoor Academy who were taking part in a project run by the Engineering Development Trust.
The ten-week Go4Set project challenged students to research, design and develop an eco hotel before presenting a model of their planned superstructure at a sustainability showcase in the captial.
In the hallowed halls of the Royal Society, the world’s oldest scientific academy, Jessica Walker, Mia Johnson, Millie Cheater, Leo Warren, Tayla Flatters - five of six Year 10 Redmoor pupils taking part in the project - discussed their ideas with other participating students, staff from the Royal Society and the American inventor.
Royal Society fellows have included Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin and Albert Einstein, with Jocelyn Bell Burnell, Richard Dawkins, Stephen Hawking and Tim Berners-Lee among its current membership.
The Redmoor team, which named its eco hotel The Woodland Inn, is now waiting to hear if it will win a place in the national finals of a Big Bang science and engineering competition to be held at the Big Bang Fair in Birmingham’s NEC next March.