Young scientists from Horsforth School will be launching eggs into the sky in the finals of a UK rocket competition.

Two teams from the school have qualified for the UK Aerospace Youth Rocketry Challenge in which they will attempt to launch a rocket containing a raw hen’s egg 825ft into the air – and bring it back down undamaged.

The Horsforth students will be competing against 18 teams of three to five teenagers from across the country in the event at Leicester University on Tuesday, June 29. The winning team will go through to an International Fly-off at Futures Day at the Farnborough International Airshow to compete against the US and French winning teams in July - as well as an all-expenses paid trip to NASA in 2010.

A school spokesman said: “The challenge aims to succeed in ‘Encouraging school children to enter the world of aerospace, engin-eering and science’ by getting kids excited about rockets and science so that they become the next generation of aerospace engineers. It’s kids, it’s rockets, it’s rocket science, it’s very exciting.”

He added: “Our teams have worked on their own with computer software to design and build their own rocket.

“Adults have supervised and advised the teams but the rocket is entirely their own design.”