And their project has been chosen as a semifinalist for the 2008 Toshiba/National Science Teachers Association ExploraVision Awards program.

The machine, invented by 8-year-olds Ashley Rambo and Samantha Cooke and Katie White, age 9, would use a concept that does not yet exist to change foods' flavor.

The idea is to draw out the gaseous form of one flavor and replace it with a gaseous form of another, they said.

The girls were one of seven teams of students in Terry Brown's third-grade class at Broadneck Elementary who worked on projects they planned to submit to the program. Four of the projects were forwarded to competition officials in Arlington, Va.

Last week, Ms. Brown learned the girls' project was one of 24 semifinalists selected from among 4,527 team entries representing 14,042 participating students from throughout the United States and Canada. A team of 68 judges reviewed the projects.

The 16-year-old ExploraVision program annually challenges youngsters from elementary school through high school to research scientific principles and current technologies and use them to design a technology that could exist in 2028.

The Micro Flavor Machine changes the flavor of food, without adding sugar or fat, while keeping all the vitamins and nutrients, the girls said.

Ashley explained the project.

"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."

The three agreed chocolate-flavored food was the best way to go, except two of them loathe dark chocolate, and prefer milk chocolate. Katie is the holdout for dark chocolate.

The three students made several drawings of the machine, including touch pads, tubes and conveyor belts.

Using format guidelines provided by ExploraVision, they had to describe how such a machine might work, provide some historic background on food flavorings such as spices, draft a comprehensive bibliography of their research sources, outline the design process, and clearly state the positive and negative consequences of such a device.

Under negatives, the girls listed: "People won't want to try new foods. They may become dependent on the Micro Flavor Machine. Kids may become spoiled or get used to always having something that tastes sweet."

A positive consequence, they said, is that "kids can be happy because the finished food will taste like something sweet and fattening. Parents will also be happy because the food has no added food or sugar."

The girls said they were surprised they won. "Winning the award was exciting," Samantha said.

Some of their classmates' contraptions were interesting as well, such as the mouth guard that squirts water into the wearer's mouth, or a trash sorter that beeps if a recyclable object gets tossed into a garbage can, and a tool belt that holds children's electronic gadgets.

Ms. Brown said it was the second year she entered a class' projects, but it is the first time a team had progressed into the semifinals.

If the flavor machine project makes it into the top eight finalists, the girls and their families will receive an all-expenses-paid trip to Washington, D.C. during a busy June weekend, including an awards banquet.

Each student on the first-place team will receive a $10,000 savings bond; second-place winners each receive a $5,000 savings bond.

Yesterday morning, the girls were aflutter, dressed in their Sunday best.

Bill Goodwin, the government and education manager for Toshiba Communications, was arriving in the early afternoon to present them, their teacher, and their mentor - who is Samantha's mom, Daryl Cooke - with framed certificates.

The girls and Ms. Brown already have received portable DVD players as part of their award.

And Toshiba sent the school a fancy laptop computer. For now, the girls are using the laptop to create Web pages about their invention for the national competition.

The ExploraVision contest had a more immediate impact because it ties directly into the class curriculum. "We do a little unit on inventions," said Ms. Brown. "It's also tied into language arts as it involves writing and research using tools provided on the internet." The competition is helping students refine skills and thought processes in their science, reading and writing classes, she said.

"We were surprised how all these skills worked together," said Katie. When Mr. Goodwin arrived for the awards ceremony, he was pleasantly surprised.

Ms. Brown's entire third-grade class, along with Principal Alison Lee, were waiting in the school's multipurpose room. Several parents also were present and armed with cameras. Members of the class' seven teams set up their tri-fold poster boards, and eagerly explained their concepts to the visiting adults. Afterward there was a reception with snacks.

"This is the best ceremony yet," Mr. Goodwin said.

The girls also learned their principal is so pleased, she's treating them and Ms. Brown to dinner at Kyoto, a Japanese restaurant in the Severna Park Plaza.

Wendi Winters is a freelance writer living on the Broadneck Peninsula.