ASPIRING young engineers are set to face-off later this month for the national finals of a Lego-based robotics contest at the University of the West of England.

Teams of students aged between nine and 16 will be taking part in the First Lego League competition held on their Frenchay campus, a part of the global science and technology challenge which challenges teams to solve real-world problems with the help of robots made from Lego.

More than 400 young people and their families are expected to take part in the competition, with the winners of the heats across the UK and Ireland vying for a place in the international finals.

In order to progress, the teams need to impress judges by identifying a real-world problem with the way humans interact with animals, investigate it and, by designing, building and programming a robot, create an innovative solution.

Jane Berry, acting head of the computer science and creative technologies department at UWE Bristol, said: “We are proud as a university to be involved with this great initiative, which does much to engage young people across the nation in technology.”

UWE’s academics, who will be among the judges, will present a prize to the team behind the most innovative solution to the challenge, including a tour of the university’s Bristol Robotics Laboratory.