Global IT company to provide collaboration technologies to the land speed record attempt team
Goodwood, England 01 July 2011– Bloodhound SSC, a project aiming to break the land speed record with a supersonic car powered by a jet engine and a rocket, today announces that Cisco, has joined the project as Networking and Video Partner.
The engineering collaboration, detailed today at the World renowned motoring event, the Goodwood Festival of Speed, sees Cisco provide video-based collaboration and networking technology to the engineering and education elements of the project. The first fruits of the new partnership can be seen next week, with the launch of Bloodhound’s new web TV channel, Cisco BHTV.
Cisco BHTV will help ‘share the adventure’; relaying data, images and interviews from the remote South African desert into homes and schools worldwide – a key part of BLOODHOUND’s International education initiative which is at the heart of the overall project.
Audiences will be taken behind the scenes of the Project as it advances via bi-monthly films produced and narrated by Stefan Marjoram, an artist, photographer and director at Aardman Studios.
Episodes One and Two, going live today, record the moment the first metal components for Bloodhound’s chassis were manufactured and show how students at Joseph Leckie College in Wallsall bid to set a new Guinness World Record with a (Bloodhound-inspired) scale model rocket car. If you want to get a taste for how exciting and nerve-wracking the record-breaking business can be, even in miniature, watch their film at http://www.bloodhoundssc.com/ciscobhtv.
The special nature of the Land Speed Record means competitors have near total freedom to innovate. This is why BLOODHOUND SSC is utterly unique: a 12.8m long, 133,000thp prototype sporting a Falcon hybrid rocket, EJ 200 Eurofighter jet and a Cosworth F1 engine. It also gives the BLOODHOUND team the freedom to share every aspect of this ‘engineering adventure’ with schools, fans and followers around the globe.
Less visible to the outside world, but just as crucial to the project, is Cisco’s role providing state of the art connectivity for The Bloodhound Technical Centre, the Project’s borderless office based in Bristol. With over 200 component and product suppliers to liaise with, huge manufacturing design files to be shared and an international team to coordinate, seamless communications are essential.
Emma Roffey, Director of Marketing and Communications for Ciscosaid, “Bloodhound is a once in a lifetime engineering adventure that embodies many of our values – the sharing of ideas, bringing people together and using innovation to inspire. We are delighted to be powering Cisco BHTV as it gives the Bloodhound project an exciting new way to reach its audience around the world, while our team here are excited to provide communications connectivity in the South African desert conditions. In Bloodhound we have a partner who recognises the power and scale of network technologies to power critical video components of their global engineering and education project.”
Project Director, Richard Nobleadded, “The key to Bloodhound is our unique ability to share every stage of this Project: from the early stages of design through to the drama of supersonic runs, every step we take and all the data we generate will be made public. No one else can do this and it is key to our ability to bring science, technology, engineering and mathematics to life in the most exciting way possible, for students of all ages, around the world. With Cisco joining the team, we have the Networking and Video Partner we need to realise this ambition.”
BLOODHOUND Project data and case studies are being used in 4,139 primary and secondary schools, 249 further education colleges and 43 universities, between them representing c.1.5 million students. With the Project being followed in 217 countries, and education materials being provided to 6m teachers via Intel’s SKOOOLS programme, the total reach of BLOODHOUND is substantial – and growing.
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