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̽��ֱ��36 students – over half of whom attend state schools – took part in the Headstart scheme, which is run by the Royal Academy of Engineering.

Organised by Rob Wallach in the Department of Materials Science, the programme took the pupils through a busy programme of lectures and hands-on activities designed to provide them with an insight into science at Cambridge.

Staying in student rooms at King's College gave them a taste of collegiate-based undergraduate life. They also had talks on the admissions process and tours of other Colleges.

Three science departments (Chemistry, Physics and Materials Science) were involved, each giving a lecture and practical session, to give first-hand experience of what it's like to study Natural Sciences.

More than 20 current Cambridge undergraduates and graduate students acted as mentors, helping to introduce pupils to the broad scope of the Natural Sciences course and answering questions about life at Cambridge.

In the practical sessions, the pupils worked in small groups and shared their results with others, to give them an idea of undergraduate learning.

Tasks ranged from synthesising aspirin in Chemistry to looking at the properties of different types of wood and using balloons to model aneurisms, the latter two in a biomaterials session in Material Sciences.

̽��ֱ��students were asked to prepare presentations on famous Cambridge scientists – who ranged from Ernest Rutherford (responsible for work on atomic structure) to Sir Christopher Cockerell (hovercraft inventor). As part of the project, they had to show experimentally the principle discovered by the scientist they had chosen– which they achieved with varied success!

Simon Fenton, 17, a pupil from Reading Blue Coat School, said: “ ̽��ֱ��programme is the right balance of practical sessions and lectures to give you an insight into how the natural sciences course works. Everyone at Cambridge is pretty nice, too.”

Working with Simon (pictured far left) were Will Bright, 17, (pictured centre) a pupil from Alton College in Hampshire, and Edward Reade, 17, (far right) a student at Woodhouse Sixth Form College in north London.

Will added: “Taking part in the summer school has definitely helped to make me certain about applying to Cambridge. In fact, I really can't think of anywhere else I'd like to study.” A similar programme, run by the Department of Engineering and based in Jesus College, took place at the end of June. It offered the same number of students the chance to experience how engineering is taught in the ̽��ֱ��.