Latest News

The Harris Federation Great Egg Race is based on the 1980's Great Egg Race BBC programme of which teams were to make mechanical creations in an attempt to solve a problem set at the start of the show. The name was obtained from the initial challenge of making a device capable of transporting an egg the furthest possible distance without breaking it.

Every year in July, the Harris Crystal Palace Design Technology Department have been holding the Great Egg Race challenge for Years 7, 8 and 9 DT students, inviting many academies to compete for the coveted Egg Race Trophy. Over the years, challenges included: The Pink Panther Challenge, Harris in Wonderland, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Water Rockets. All challenges required the students to complete in a Food and Textiles task and a Resistant Materials task, of which the students had to create a specific product of which to transport an egg the furthest distance without breaking it!

This year, students hailed from Harris Bermondsey, Morden, Merton, Beckenham, Falconwood, East Dulwich Boys, Purley, South Norwood and of course Crystal Palace. In each academy there are 2 students for each year group and 2 students were to compete in the Food, Textiles and RM task. Academies were allowed to nominate their strongest candidates to battle against each other in each of the categories. The theme of this year's Egg Race was 'Wacky Races'.

For the Food task students were asked to produce a 3D sponge cake based around the theme of ‘Wacky Races’. The sponge cake needed to be a shape of a car and be decorated to reflect the theme. For the Textiles task teams were to produce a Wind sock' making it from materials provided to them and embellishing it with a logo to represent their academy. For the Resistant Materials task teams were to design a wheeled vehicle that is capable of travelling along the length of the race track that has been provided. The vehicle must include a means of transporting two eggs safely throughout the vehicles journey. The vehicle will only be converting it into motion! The vehicle that manages to travel the greatest distance whilst also holding onto its load will be crowned the winner!

The Finale Race consisted of a powered leaf blower giving the wind power for the car to race along the track. As well as getting points for the furthest distance travelled with eggs intact, extra points were awarded for the car popping either the gold or the silver balloons at the very end of the track. Any veering off and red balloons popped, minus points were given!

Overall winners of the Great Egg Race 2014 were awarded to Harris Bermondsey. Full marks for their car racing along the track and popping the gold balloon! What is extra special about this win, was that the girls do not study Resistant Materials at GCSE's and their car won!- Even beating the teacher's cars! They tried their best, listened carefully to advice and watched demos on how to use the tools and machines in the workshops. Their hard work clearly paid off when they were first in the Windy Racers car race!

Well done Harris Bermondsey! We hope that all students and staff that took part enjoyed themselves and we look forward to seeing you all again next summer!

HCACP DT Department