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Students smash land speed record TWICE: Teenagers create a rocket-powered model car that can travel at more than 500mph

Record set by students in Joseph Whitaker School in Nottinghamshire
Their car, Insanity, managed 509.83mph (820.49km/h) on its first run
It then beat its own record by getting to 556.28mph (895.25km/h)
This beat existing record of 287mph (460km/h) which was in March

Published: 10:35 EST, 8 October 2014 | Updated: 11:00 EST, 8 October 2014

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A group of schoolchildren has beaten the land speed record for a rocket-powered car, twice over, after their vehicles hit speeds of over 500mph (800km/h).

The young engineers from Nottinghamshire beat the existing record of 287mph (460km/h) set in March by Samvir Thandi of The Heathland School in Middlesex.

In total, the group put three car designs through their paces at a testing track in Hucknall - and all three were able to reach speeds in excess of 440mph (708km/h).

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A group of school children have smashed a land speed record twice for rocket-powered cars after their model vehicles hit speeds of over 500mph (800km/h). Pictured is the Redshift model

The cars were each built by students at the Joseph Whitaker School, in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, and were called Redshift, Bloodhound and Insanity.

They were tested at the Royce track in Hucknall.

Redshift reached speeds of 478.1mph (769.4km/h), and Bloodhound followed with a speed of 448.9mph (722.4km/h) – and then Insanity took to the track.

The car managed 509.83mph (820.49km/h) on its first run, then recorded 556.28mph (895.25km/h) on its second.

This created an average speed on 533.1mph (857.9km/h) beating both the previous record and thei group's own newly-set world record.

The team took the three cars built by the students - Bloodhound (left), Insanity (centre) and Redshift (right) – to Royce testing track in Hucknall. Redshift reached speeds of 478.1mph (769.4km/h) and Bloodhound followed with a speed of 448.9mph (722.4km/h)

The members of the young engineers club at Joseph Whitaker School, in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire beat the existing record of 287mph (460km/h) set in 2011

AUSTRALIAN UNIVERSITY SETS SPEED RECORD FOR SOLAR CAR

A team of University of New South Wales students this year broke a 26-year-old world record for speed, which would make their solar car the fastest electric vehicle to travel 500km on a single battery charge.

The car, which was built by Australia's top solar car racing team - UNSW's Sunswift, was able to travel at an average speed of more than 60mph (100km/h), leaving the previous world record of 45mph (73km/h) in the dust.

The world record was broken on a 4.2km circular race track in Geelong - south-west of Melbourne - in Victoria at the Australian Automotive Research Centre in July.

The vehicle called eVe was the fifth one built and raced by Sunswift since the team was founded in 1996.

Teacher Phil Worsley said: 'The weather was horrific early on Saturday morning but then eventually the sun came out and we were away.

'We're actually going to get two certificates from the Guinness Book of Records because we broke our own new record and the whole school is absolutely buzzing.

'We started with buying simple rocket kits, building them and firing them into the sky - then developed our ideas from there.

'We thought before we did the official runs that we were in with a good chance - we weren't being cocky, but we had done lots of practice runs and knew how the cars were performing.'

The club is made up of four girls and 14 boys, with ages ranging from 11 to 17.

Sherwood MP Mark Spencer went to the event to cheer the students on, and Lindsay Chapman from the National Physical Laboratory acted as official time-keeper.

The data will now be formally analysed by experts before the records are officially acknowledged in around two weeks.

Insanity (pictured) managed 509.83mph (820.49km/h) on its first run, then recorded 556.28pm (895.25km/h) on its second. This created an average speed on 533.1mph (857.9km/h) beating both the previous record and the students' own newly-set world record

The teenagers followed in the footsteps of legendary speed-merchant Donald Campbell (right) - who broke both the land and water speed records in the 1960s