Lorna Filby, Louisa Gallimore and Kate Walters, of Kesteven and Grantham Girls' School, were runners up at the National Young Scientists and Engineers Fair 2008, held in London last Friday.

The girls have been working on a project as part of the Engineering Education Scheme, which links teams of students and their teacher with a local company to work on real scientific, engineering and technological problems.

They worked with their science teacher Caroline Rees and Newark-based firm Rototek to redesign an exhibition case to be produced on a rotational moulding machine, a piece of equipment which moulds plastic into shapes.

They had to design individual parts while trying to reduce labour costs, time and the number of fixtures needed.

Some 35,000 teams entered the scheme and only 33 reached the national final, with Lorna, Louisa and Kate coming second in the tecnhnology part of the competition.

Mrs Rees said: "I'm so proud of them.

"They've said it's been such a great experience. They've taken it all on board and done their project themselves.

"I would consider it a university level project and they've done it to a great standard."

The girls, who are now in their final year at KGGS, want to encourage future students to follow in their footsteps and gave a special assembly in front of the school this week to talk about their experience.

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