If three kid inventors have anything to say about it, all vegetables will taste like chocolate... even brussel sprouts! Yep! Three third-graders from Annapolis, MD have invented "The Micro Flavor Machine," and won a shot at the finals of the 2008 Toshiba/National Science Teachers Association ExploraVision Awards.

The challenge to grade-school and high-school students throughout the U.S. and Canada was to design a technology that could exist in year 2028 based on current technologies and scientific principles. Toshiba has held the ExploraVision contest for 16 years. The Flavor Machine team was one of 4,527 teams making it to the semi-finals, where 68 judges will be deciding their fate!

The 8 and 9-year olds on the Micro Flavor Machine team, Ashley Rambo, Samantha Cooke, and Katie White decided to find a way to get kids to want to eat what is healthy for them. Ashley described the invention to The Capitol newspaper of Annapolis, Md.

"Katie made a little prototype machine with two magnetrons. The food still looks the same, but the flavor changes. The magnetrons change the food's flavor into a gas, another flavored gas replaces it. If we used a liquid, it would turn food into mush."

How does a 9-year old create two magnetrons? Beyond me. But whether this team wins the ExploraVision Contest or not, I hope they didn't sign their rights away.... The Micro Flavor Machine is an idea that has legs and wings! And not just for kids.

The Toshiba/National Science Teacher ExploraVision Awards will be announced at the beginning of May. Good luck to the Annapolis "dream team" and all the other kid inventor teams that are participating in the semi-finals of this event.

via The Capitol.