A COMPETITION designed to inspire the engineers of tomorrow has brought success for three schools from Suffolk.

A COMPETITION designed to inspire the engineers of tomorrow has brought success for three schools from Suffolk.

The regional round of the First Lego League Robotics contest, held in Cambridge, was won by the TSM Robot Team made up of primary school pupils from Trimley St Martin, near Felixstowe.

They carried off the overall award - which carries with it a place in the national final in Loughborough next month - having earlier been judged the winner of the Best Robot Performance category.

The judges described the performance and capability of the primary school team, who took on beat teams with pupils much older and experienced than themselves, as “awesome”.

Also among the winners were Aqua Ambers from Amberfield School, near Ipswich, who won the Best Technical award, Crazy Cod, also from Amberfield, who won the Best Display and Understanding of the Project category, and FHS Floaters, from Farlingaye High School, Woodbridge, who won the Best Team title.

The event was run for the third time by management consultancy Transitions, whose director, Shai Vyakarnam, said: “As something where we get an opportunity to give something back to the community at the end of a long hard year of work, this tournament gives us enormous pleasure.

“Through the tournament we can see young people gain so much confidence with technical skills, an appreciation of science and technology and work as team members for an eight week period.

“This year the competition focused on the effects of humans and climate change on oceans and children were inspired to build robotic solutions to problems faced in our oceans.”