Jetpack science
I must admit, when I picked up a magazine the other day to discover that there was a jetpack for sale, I thought it was a late April Fool’s joke, but apparently not.
As advertised on their website, the Martin Jetpack costs an eye-watering US $86,000 but the uplift from the two-litre 200hp engine can provide 30 minutes of flight and will take the (brave) pilot up to 8000 feet above the ground.
This jetpack isn’t really a jetpack in the conventional sense. There are no flames whooshing out of the back as the propulsion comes from fans that are driven by the petrol engine. I can’t see this as the future of personal transport, but it has a great future in adding interest to a lesson in forces and motion.
I’ve uploaded a jetpack forces PowerPoint presentation that could be used with a KS3 class during a topic on forces.
The video of the jetpack in action could also be used in part of a GCSE class, where students could hypothesise how it works. All three of Newton’s Laws of Motion are demonstrated nicely in this one invention.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TBndcBjQFM
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