TEAMS of talented young designers went head to head with their Lego robots at a hotly contested Barrow event.

Furness primary and secondary students have been getting fired up about robotics and science, technology and engineering through the First Lego League Furness regional tournament.

The popular global series came to Barrow for the first time through STEM Cumbria at Furness College.

The 10 teams have been working on Lego robot designs and research projects since the end of last year. They designed, built and programmed a robots using Lego Mindstorms technology.

The competition saw the teams then perform autonomous missions with the robots on a table top playing field.

The students also gave presentations on the theme of Animal Allies.

Throughout the day the nine to 14-year-olds worked with STEM Cumbria's STEM ambassadors, who include staff from Siemens and BAE Systems.

The youngsters are judged on their core values of teamwork, problem solving and sportsmanship and the event promoted STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) careers.

The winners of the robot games award and the overall champions were Holy Family Catholic Primary School, of Barrow. The team, called Circuit Breakers, now progresses to the UK and Ireland First Lego League final in Bristol at the end of February. Schools that are successful at the national event have the chance to compete at the international contests in America, Denmark or Bristol.

Holy Family teacher Mike Bowker, who leads the team said: "It has been an absolutely amazing event. The core skills the children have learnt, the team work, has been brilliant.

"We have a STEM Club and the children want challenges, this was the next step for them. They have worked very well together to make the robot."

Martha Andrews, 11, said: "I'm very excited about going to the UK competition. I think we have been outstanding as a team and we have had lots of fun."

Thomas O'Donnell, 10, said: "We would love to go to Denmark, where Lego originated. We are going to tweak the robot now for the UK competition."

Tony Gill, chief executive, of STEM Cumbria thanked everyone who had made the tournament a success and said that next year they would like to have 20 teams competing.

The robot design winners were Ulverston Victoria High School, while the project award was presented to Roose Primary School. The core values award went to the Furness Academy and the newcomers award went to Croftlands Junior School.

Ulverston Victoria High School and Croftlands Junior School, Ulverston, have been sponsored by Siemens and Roose Primary School was sponsored by Centrica.

Furness Academy, St Bernard's Catholic High School and Holy Family Catholic Primary School, have been sponsored by the Sir John Fisher Foundation.