Pre Prep trip to Brooklands Museum

To fire up enthusiasm, obtain knowledge and prepare for Formula 1 Steamed Week next week Pre Prep took a trip to Brooklands Museum in Weybridge.
The boys were fortunate to be given guided tours of the car museum. Firstly we discovered that Brooklands racetrack was built 111 years ago in 1907. The racetrack is still there today around the perimeter of the museum and the boys got to walk along a section of it and were quite fascinated by the surprisingly steep slope. We learnt how many of the cars in the museum have been restored which is why they look so shiny and pristine. Our ‘Journeys on Land’ tour saw us explore a plethora of different vehicles:
Some of the earliest cars, such as horseless carriages;
A world land speed record holder; BABS;
Racing motorbikes;
Motorbikes with sidecars (these reminded us of Wallace and Gromit!);
Racing cars through the ages including the Grand Prix winner Delage and a replica of a modern Formula 1 car driven by Ayrton Seena – many of us were lucky enough to sit in this; Miss Walters and Mrs Swift even got to drive a Formula 1 car simulator based on a car Lewis Hamilton drove. They reached speeds of 250mph and Miss Walters beat the simulator lap record!
Other parts of our visit included visiting the bus museum where we saw and tried out buses through the ages. Our favourites were the horse-drawn carriages. Did you know that in 1900 there were about 40,000 horses pulling ‘buses’. That’s a lot of manure!
Finally we made and tested peg cars. We learnt about many different parts of a car during this process and it has inspired some of us to think about becoming car engineers.
In the meantime we’re all looking forward to a week of work next week based around Formula 1 which will definitely include more car design and construction.
Mrs Swift.