What, you may wonder, is this strange contraption for?

For Morris's Marvels, a team of girls from Huntington School, York, it was the ingenious design which brought them victory in the school's third Great Egg Race contest.

Pictured with their winning entry are Nicola Gleeson, Mandy Morris, Fiona Rogers and Gemma White.

Teams of young inventors rejoicing in such pun-laden names as The Eggomaniacs, Still Eggshausted and The Eggs Files took part in the hotly-contested competition at Huntington School, which is the only school in York to have Technology College status.

The 55 teams, made up of pupils from schools all over York, (plus one adult per team), had to test their problem-solving skills and get to grips with the fiendish challenge of building a machine to transport a chocolate egg over a 40cm gap, moving as slowly as possible.

The winning team managed to keep their egg in motion for a gravity-defying five and a quarter minutes.

Fulford School's Team Carrot won the best away team prize, while the prize for most artistic-looking entry (though it didn't actually work) went to the aptly-named We're Only Yolking, and the Red Dwarf inspired Smegheads won the best name prize.

The race took place to mark the start of both the ECOFIN conference and the SET 98 national science week. Guest of honour was David Charles from London's Science Museum, who judged the grand final in the school hall.

The prizes for the finalists, including trophies and chocolate eggs were donated by Nestl, QED Books and National Power based at Drax and.....(groan) Eggborough.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.