Back at the end of the 70s a new, how did they come up with that idea, programme appeared on BBC2. I can remember if it was on Sunday afternoon or, and I think I'd probably plump for this if I had to, at about 6.30 on a Wednesday or Thursday evening.
It was called "The Great Egg Race".
Ring any bells?
The premise was simple...
There were teams of boffins (engineers probably)... I think 3 per team and probably 3 or 4 teams...
As usual this might be a bit out because I refuse to Google anything until I've written most of this blog post because half of the fun is delving as deep as I can into my memory to see what funny hidden parts I remember (and which of them I subsequently find that I have made up and will generally be deleted before you ever get to see them)...
And the teams had to create a contraption which would transport an egg (uncooked - and with none of that cheating like we used to do with conkers like soaking them in vinegar) over the longest distance possible.
And the only thing they could use to power the eggy-vehicle (there must be an egg vehicle joke but frustratingly I can't think of it) was a rubber band. So one of the tricks was to store as much energy in the rubber band as possible and then control its release.
Hare = bad... tortoise = good.
I think they had to create the egg-transporting vehicle in the studio with the materials that were provided for them - a sort of forerunner to those scrap heap programmes (from the clips I've seen of them) but more theoretical calculations and brown sweaters.
And I remember that one of the judges was Professor Heinz Wolff who was the most perfect looking sciency-boffiny-professor ever... and who always reminded me more than slightly of Prof Pat Pending from the Wacky Races. And also I sat opposite him on a train journey to London one day (Prof Heinz Wolff... not Prof Pat Pending!) and I spent the whole time in silent awe.
Prof Heinz Wolff Image Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinz_Wolff
Anyway this quickly caught on at Holtspur County Middle School (it's very sad... we went back with our children to show them my junior school and it's now a housing estate... all that nostalgia flushed down the pan)...
But it morphed slightly, partly I think because it would have been very unwise to let us loose with eggs. So we made what we used to call tanks but were actually an old fashioned cotton reel (the chunky ones), ideally wooden. The rubber band would be fed through the middle and at one end would have a match threaded through the loop and fixed in place with a drawing pin. And at the other end we'd thread through a longer thing... a stick or a short pencil or something like that... and that would what we'd use to wind it up and which would also be the contact with the ground which would help to propel the thing along.
I remember the choice of rubber band was important. We'd try gazillions of different thicknesses and lengths. Some people would carve notches into rims of the cotton reel to reduce slippage. And I also remember cutting up bits of candle to use to reduce friction between the stick/pencil and the cotton reel body of the tank.
And we'd race them and race them... and make tweaks... and repeat ad nauseum.
And all thanks to The Great Egg Race.
OK... I've just had a quick look on Google and I found this BBC page all about The Great Egg Race (https://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/the-great-egg-race/zfyhd6f), complete with full episodes! Turns out, from the one I watched from 1979 anyway, that the eggmobiles were created in advance and that they challenge that the teams all faced during the programme (where they had to use household objects) was a mystery one which changed every week.
Oh... and Brian Cant (who, according to our poll a few years ago, is the best person off children's television ever!) presented it (in a very groovy number... you'll love it when you see it here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/the-great-egg-race--eggmobiles/zbrvmfr!).
Bring back any memories?
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