Titanic challenge for students (From Hampshire Chronicle)
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Titanic challenge for students
11:10am Friday 10th February 2012 in News
Headteacher Richard Kelly thanking the driver from Lambert Brothers Haulage, Peter Jeans, for delivering the bending slab
IT was the liner that was meant to be unsinkable and was a feat of engineering for its time.
Now a group of students will attempt to recreate part of the famous RMS Titanic in the classroom.
Quilley School of Engineering, in Eastleigh, is launching a project in which pupils and a member of staff will try to replicate a section of the bow of the liner using the skills and techniques of the time.
The vessel, built in Belfast, departed from Southampton, but sank on her maiden voyage after hitting an iceberg in April, 1912, with the loss of 1,517 lives.
Construction will begin in mid-February, with a 2.5 tonne bending slab just delivered to the school, which is on loan from ExxonMobil Chemical Ltd, at Hampshire’s Fawley refinery.
The finished piece will stand at between two and three metres high and will become public art to mark the 100th anniversary of the disaster.
The school has additional support from school governor, Stephen Payne, who was the principal naval architect and designer for the RMS Queen Mary II, who has been working on the drawings the school has got from an American company.
Dave Wilkes, engineer and presenter of Channel 4’s Titanic – the Mission, will also be paying a visit.
Stephen Shaw, project manager, said: “I did my training as a shipbuilder and am really looking forward to this project.”
The Titanic theme continues at the school, with activities including a musical produced by drama students.
