The Great Egg Race was a BBC television series that ran from 1979 to 1986 and featured Brian Cant, Professor Heinz Wolff and Lesley Judd, who joined the series in 1984. It was later revived on BBC Choice and was presented by Johnny Ball. In a similar vein to the later Channel 4 series Scrapheap Challenge, the show featured teams creating Heath Robinson-esque mechanical creations in an attempt to solve a problem set at the start of the show.
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Finalists compete on an oil rig in the North Sea off the coast of Aberdeen. Their task is to take an aerial photograph of the platform without using an aircraft. Former RAF aerial photographer Tom Pratt is the guest judge. Heinz Wolff also takes the opportunity to look around and learn more about the rig itself. In 1983, Heinz Wolff devised an experiment to monitor the brainwaves of astronauts in the Challenger Space Shuttle.
The contestants make breakfast from raw materials brought into the studio (including a cow and a goat to provide the milk) using devices that they have constructed from household goods. Professor Heinz Wolff and the guest judge, crofter Cynthia MacArthur, then sample and mark the products accordingly. The coffee, at least, is considered better than that provided at the BBC. Heinz Wolff has made various appearances on other BBC programmes, including 'Tomorrow's World' (a 1966 episode on man-powered flights), 'Young Scientists of the Year' (from 1974 until 1981), 'Q.E.D.' (in which he looks back at 1948 from the brink of 1984), 'Great Experiments' (from 1985 until 1986), 'BBC News', 'The Adventure Game', 'Wogan', 'Horizon', numerous medical documentaries and 'The Great Egg Race Rides Again' (2000), re-edited versions of episodes from the original series.
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The Great Egg Race was a BBC television series that ran from 1979 to 1986 and featured Brian Cant, Professor Heinz Wolff and Lesley Judd, who joined the series in 1984. It was later revived on BBC Choice and was presented by Johnny Ball. In a similar vein to the later Channel 4 series Scrapheap Challenge, the show featured teams creating Heath Robinson-esque mechanical creations in an attempt to solve a problem set at the start of the show.
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