The annual CGCU egg race gives engineers 2 hours, some wood, sellotape and glue to build a flying machine to guide their egg safely back to earth. At least that's the plan.
The delta-winged plane from the ASC Acolytes, a group from the Custom Computing research group in DoC, set the target with the first flight of the afternoon. After gliding half-way from the Queen's Tower to the Library, it conducted a vertical landing on its tail delivering the egg intact.
A second delta-winged aircraft covered a long distance but in the wrong direction, instead landing on the crowd.
A number of the entrants planes came crashing down at the foot of the tower, with the Wayne-o-plane inverting its wings and drifting gently down to the ground. Several other entries flew well, but came down to earth with an egg-shattering bump.
One team elected to throw the egg - and just the egg - off the tower. This was judged by Matthew Taylor, CGCU VPA, to have landed intact despite its rapid descent.
Spitfire, a group from Chemical Engineering, took the prize for "Lovliest" plane. Rookies, consisting of an assortment of Aero, Mechanical, Computing students .. and even a Maths infilitrator .. took the prize for most innovative design.
A second co-ordinated flight for all the planes ended badly for some, with a few broken eggs littering the Queen's Lawn (and some broken planes for good measure).
Matthew Asher returned to Guilds for one day only, bringing sponsorship from QinetiQ with him.
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