Accelerating Bloodhound SSC to 1000MPH

Been a busy week at Oracle and Bloodhound SSC. I love the transition we are going through as a company, it is hard work but so many new approaches and ideas are occurring every day. First a massive thank you for the overwhelming support we are getting in the media and social networks.

It was interesting this week, someone said, “What business problem is being answered if you get a car to go 1,000MPH?” Had to think of a simple response and here we go. “The biggest business problem Bloodhound SSC is focused on is inspiring a generation to think differently. We have a massive talent issue in the UK and globally.”

You will notice in the pictures above that a newspaper article shows how we need scientists, technologists, and engineers now. I want to share my personal goal; I want to provide the ability for students to dream of ideas that benefit the world.

The normal day to day life will not always provide the ability to reflect or dream on what is possible. When I left school with one O level in Art I could have given up, being dyslexic means in the 80’s it was hard to show skills outside traditional education. My style, if you know me well, is a) I never give up and b) I like challenges that need to be resolved. I remember my mum and dad got a BBC B computer which I started using copying code from Ceefax (which never worked) so I started writing code and developing little projects. I started reflecting how great this was being artists of coding. Good coding is an art, like any skill when it becomes art it should be treasured.

My dream came through something that was new and not used before. Well Bloodhound SSC is that project for an entire generation, across all ages to try and engage in new ideas. I spoke to a student this week who asked me what would I like to achieve with Bloodhound SSC? My response was, the ability for someone to come up with a solution to a real-world problem through Bloodhound SSC taking them outside the normal day.

It was probably the discussion I had with my daughter Charlotte about Bloodhound SSC that showed me what could be achieved. So here is the discussion?

Charlotte, “Dad what is Bloodhound SSC?”

Me, “a very fast car.”

Charlotte, “OK, can I go back to TV now?”

Me, “I said wait, how about this as a better response?”

Me, “Would you like to sit next to Andy Green when he actually drives a car faster than a speeding bullet?”.

Charlotte, “What? You cannot see a bullet.”

Me, “Yes”

Charlotte, “No way, not possible.”

The here and now generation experience life through visual experience. We have started to design the ability for a student to look at the car, see data being shown in a visual experience at the same time Andy is experiencing it in South Africa. I would really like for the student to be in a near time virtual experience before the world sees it in existing media channels.

Everything is possible, you need a dream, hard work and focus. Failing to deliver a dream is 99% of the challenge.

Oracle is providing a team of experts to show the skills they have in technology and focus on this no.1 issue. Talent for the future through inspiring a generation. Bloodhound SSC (https://www.Bloodhound SSCssc.com/) has an amazingly talented bunch of engineers. It is wonderful that Oracle is a small part of this amazing team.  

Let’s now focus on what has been achieved in a few weeks. Last week we connected the data capture sensors to the Oracle Cloud. This week we have connected the car and streamed data to the Oracle Cloud. The team lead by Asaf Lev has got a local hub to store and forward data in a resilient way from the car.

An early principle of our approach is not to use anything a student could not have obtained from the high street. Asaf and I did a little whiteboard for you to see how we connected Bloodhound SSC to the Oracle Cloud.

We have used a simple 4g router to connect to the Oracle Cloud, data is sent off the car (using a store and forward method). The solution is resilient using 4 x 4g sims. We also have parallel messages being passed from the car, the test sample solution provides 2000 Transactions Per Second which means in a single run we could see 700 to 2000MB of data. We have a backup solution if the 4g fails which is a connected Ethernet approach.

Once on the Oracle Cloud we pass to a service bus which streams data to a data store (Oracle DB). We have a real-time weather feed from the Met Office using an open API. Spatial data is pre-loaded into a GIS data type.

What this means we can then layer weather, mapping data and car data onto the same overlay. This week we have sample data being shown into data visualization cloud service as can be seen below.

So, a busy week, it is great we can share what we are doing. The Oracle interns and graduates have started work on Bloodhound SSC and will post their own experiences. We decided to make this their fiscal project which is a once in a lifetime experience. A blend of experienced talent and new in career which is so exciting will staff the project.

We also completed this month on the virtual reality solution, using a VR company to help do the digital graphics. We will show how this looks in the prototype at Newquay. Thank you to HQ folk for the great support and help, especially my great team who have been so committed in personal time to develop this solution.

Oracle Openworld starts this weekend and you will hear much more of Bloodhound SSC as we have some special guests coming over. We have so much to show at the event and Newquay which will be a massive achievement for all involved.