CBBC Commissions Two Science Series

LONDON: Space Hoppers and a new season of Richard Hammond’s Blast Lab have been commissioned by CBBC in the U.K. to add to its factual programming lineup for kids.

Space Hoppers is a new 7×30-minute interplanetary adventure featuring physicist Professor Brian Cox. The show is set to launch in 2010, and is being made in conjunction with BBC Science’s Seven Wonders of the Solar System, also presented by Professor Cox. Space Hoppers will explore the Solar System, blending animation with CGI. Space Hoppers is a collaboration between the London factual department and CBBC.

The first season of Richard Hammond’s Blast Lab, broadcast earlier this year, was a success for CBBC with 6- to 12-year-old viewers. The show is set in a fictitious underground laboratory in the grounds of his supposed stately home. Richard invites two groups of three friends into his lab to take part in his experiments and compete against each other to win prizes. Each show focuses on a different scientific theme and experiments are designed to have ‘take away’ value. The second installment of the first season of Blast Lab will begin on BBC Two on June 20 at 8:30 a.m., repeated on CBBC on June 22 at 4:30 p.m.

Anne Gilchrist, the controller of CBBC, said: "It’s great for CBBC to have two such powerful science series. It is perfect inspirational material for an audience which is constantly curious about the world around them and how it works."