BUDDING young engineers had a blast competing in a national contest against older students.

Pupils from Holy Family Catholic Primary School, in Barrow, represented Cumbria at the Institution of Engineering and Technology’s First Lego League UK and Ireland final.

The youngsters from the Ostley Bank school qualified for the prestigious event by being the overall champions and robot games winners at the first ever South Cumbria heat, run by STEM Cumbria at Furness College.

The Barrow schoolchildren then headed to the final in Bristol, and event involving almost 500 young people all demonstrate their skills in robotics, computer programming, teamwork, research, problem solving and communication.

The science and technology challenge tasked teams to build a robot to tackle a series of missions, each representing a different aspect of animal-human interaction. The final was hosted by CBBC presenter Fran Scott.

Holy Family only got involved in the training for the First Lego League events in September. In the final the Circuit Breakers team competed against secondary school students and also schools that have been competing in these events for some year. The Barrow pupils were very proud to finish mid table out of 48 teams.

Teacher Mike Bowker said it was a fantastic experience for the pupils and he is extremely proud of the team.

Mr Bowker said the school will be working hard to get back to the finals again next year.

Holy Family thanked Brown Barron Solicitors for sponsoring the team. Circuit Breakers sported their yellow sponsored hoodies at the event.

IET President Jeremy Watson CBE said: “First Lego League is not just a robotics competition, it is a unique educational opportunity for young people to pursue their ideas and collaborate with businesses and organisations from the world outside school as they develop innovative solutions to problems they have identified in real world issues.

“IET initiatives like this show young people how creative, exciting and rewarding careers in engineering can be. In order to tackle the engineering skills gap we need more graduates and apprentices to enter the profession, and this can only happen if more school-age children – girls as well as boys – are attracted to, and choose to study Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths subjects – competitions like First Lego League are therefore vital."