A cost effective way to prevent the breakage of cocoa beans and a heads up display for cars were on display at the Engineering Education Scheme (EES) Celebration and Assessment Day at the NEC yesterday.

The project, which celebrates its 21st anniversary this year, gives talented Year 12 maths and science students hands-on experience of engineering by working with local companies.

Among the innovations were a new safety device for rail workers developed by students from Aldersley High School, Wolverhampton and Carillion.

The important temporary access system allows personnel to walk safely across the track when moving equipment is on site. Meanwhile Cadburys Trebor Bassett challenged a group of girls from King Edward VI High School, Birmingham to investigate the causes of cocoa bean breakage in transport.

The group developed a low-cost system, for use in Ghana as the beans are loaded into the ship container, which reduces bean breakage and saves money.

A central locking system for houses was designed by a team from Pershore High School working with Qinetiq, of Malvern.

Using hidden fittings, the device can be used on both windows and doors.

Julie Bradford, from Quinetiq, who has worked with the team, said: "The challenge we gave them was to build a ways to centrally lock a house, with an automatically controlled window system."

"The youngsters had quite a lot of ideas. They have been fantastic, some had some basic electronics knowledge from their GCSEs but they have really got stuck in."