TWO North-East graduates have won first prize in a national competition for their egg-boiling device.

The winning design, created by James Kennedy and Johann Litherland, will now compete against 1,700 international entries in the Imagineering competition.

The two former University of Teesside design students have developed a safe egg-boiling kit, which removes the tricky problem of transferring an egg from boiling water into a cup.

The pair's design was judged the best in the national Imagineering industrial design competition and won them £3,600.

Mr Kennedy, 23, from Darlington, secured a degree in product design strategies and digital prototyping at the Middlesbrough university.

He said: "We designed it as part of a university project, which looked at comfort and functionality and involved observing how people use products in the home.

"We are now developing the idea further and hope to get design rights on the new device and hopefully one day go into production."

Mr Litherland, 22, from Devon, came up with the idea. He said: "I saw the problems my mother was having transferring a hot egg out of the pan, and I then talked to James about designing something to solve this."

The design will be judged at the final during the Kunstoff Festival, in Dusseldorf, Germany, which is held from today until Wednesday.

The pair expect to hear the result this weekend.