PUPILS from Ryedale School, Nawton, are waiting to hear if their home-made robots have bested their mechanical rivals.

Teams from the school created two ferocious robots to compete in the regional heats for the BBC Techno-Games 2002 last week. The year ten pupils travelled to Birmingham with technology teacher Peter Ives, armed with a mechanical swimmer and a rope-climbing robot.

Technology teacher Mr Ives said all eight children had worked really hard on their robots at an after-school club.

He said: "The theme of the Techno-Games is the Olympics and the robots must all have human or animal-like movements."

The mechanical swimmer is powered by a cordless drill, and the climber shins up a rope with the help of an old windscreen-wiper motor.

Now the teams are waiting on tenterhooks to hear if they have reached the finals in London next month.

Mr Ives added: "They did brilliantly. We were surprised by the scale of the competition - there were 160 in the swimming competition. There were engineering clubs there and some of the robots were very expensive.

"Both our machines performed well on the day, and it was a very nice atmosphere. Everybody was very open and enjoyed each other's success."

Updated: 10:58 Thursday, November 29, 2001