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News
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St Joseph's College Hovercraft News |
 St Joseph's College Engineering Club is building a full size hovercraft for use by pupils.
In order for pupils to use it, the plans for the craft have to be Health and Safety approved and has to be built with great attention to detail. We are building the Eagle 1 student approved hovercraft and it is nearing completion. Because it is an approved design pupils can use the craft at the Hovercraft Club of Great Britain; events take place across Europe every summer. The meetings are held in the grounds of stately homes, on the beaches of Belgium and there is the annual international meet in France at the end of August each year.
The engine for the craft was going to be a 250cc motorcycle engine, which was sourced by the pupils. This was stripped, cleaned, re-bored and reassembled; the students learned a great deal from the process. The engine is 25 years old and is very unreliable making it the weak link in an otherwise superb project. Taking advice from the Hovercraft Club of Great Britain, it has become very clear that motorcycle engines break down a lot during club meetings, so much so that schools have been known to spend the whole of a weekend at a meeting trying to get their engine to work.
To this end, the club strongly recommends that a Rotax engine is used. Rotax engines are used in microlights and small aircraft and are extremely well built and very reliable. Although initially expensive, the Rotax engine will give years of trouble free use and the pupils will enjoy the club weekends rather than being unable to take part through engine problems. To this end the recommended engine is the Rotax 447UL at £1450 pounds.
Therefore, fund raising will be the next step in making a Rotax engine powered school hovercraft a reality!
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 Art Auction On Wednesday 2nd July, St Joseph’s held its inaugural Art Auction in aid of Lasallian Developing World Projects and the Zapallal school in Peru. Over 100 pieces of work were donated by both staff and pupils and the evening proved to be a memorable one.
It was a pleasure to welcome Old Boy and auctioneer Johnathan Benson, back to the College; Jonathan works for Reeman Dansie Auctioners in Colchester. He had the audience of bidders in tears of laughter with his constant repertoire and amusing observations.
The evening began with drinks and nibbles, whilst the audience of both students, staff and parents viewed the items up for auction. From then on, the gavel was busy until the final bid was received.
Over £2,500 was raised and all proceeds will be split between the Lasallian developing world projects and the De La Salle School in Zapallal, Peru. This is such good news for the College and due to the huge success, we are already planning another auction next year!
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The British Model Flying Association |
 College is National Electric Plane Competition runners up for third year in a row.
Ten A level physics students are this week celebrating a third year as runners up in the National Electric Plane competition held at Elvington Airfield, Yorkshire.
The competition which runs alongside the Heavy Lift Challenge invites schools, colleges and universities from across the country to construct a plane to carry the greatest cargo during a ten minute time slot.
St Joseph’s College team, having spent just under a year researching, designing and constructing two planes, suffered a couple of blows prior to leaving for the event, however with much burning of the midnight oil they were finally ready to compete.
Following a night camped out at Elvington, the students gave the judges a presentation on the two planes, before preparing for their first flight. The day started well with a successful flight by the heavy lift plane carrying 3kg, however the second flight saw the plane laden with 4kg take a spectacular nose dive to the ground taking them out of the competition.
The second competition involved the electric plane flying over the required circuit full of 20 eggs, before landing, restocking and taking off again. The final payload after a 10 minute slot was 114 eggs.
Sadly the next flight saw the plane experience technical difficulties and so they lost out to Strathclyde by just 5 eggs.
The competitors were all aeronautical students from universities except Allenyes School from Staffordshire. The universities use the competition to give curriculum time on aeronautical design and flight theory, so quite a remarkable success for these A level students. Well done everyone.
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A co-educational independent day school for 2-18 year olds with boarding facilities. Reg No: 3142500, Company No: 1051688 Charity No:1051688 |
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