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It may seem like child's play - but to scores of
schoolchildren from across Kent a LEGO competition provided the
building blocks to their education.

Youngsters have been competing in the regional finals of a
worldwide LEGO competition.

The First LEGO League 2011 (FLL) is an international robotics
tournament for children aged between nine and 16.

It is a programme which uses the challenges of designing robots
out of the toy bricks, to open children's eyes to the fun and
excitement of science and technology.

Since the project started in 1998 in the USA the competition has
gone global - running in 30 countries.

All 24 schools taking part had to design a robot from LEGO and
computerise them so they can complete tasks. The best designed
robots completed the most tasks, getting the most points.

For the past 10 years - including this year - the
University of Kent has hosted the event at its Canterbury
campus.

Jane Anderson from the Partnership Development Office said:
"This competition is about inspiring young people to get into stem
subjects, which is science, technology and engineering.

"So they had to programme their robots to compete tasks around
the table - so it's a fun way of becoming involved in science."

The theme for this year's programme is to do with food -
therefore not only do pupils have to design robots they have to
present a research project into ways food can avoid
contamination.

Ms Anderson added: "A student said he came here to do the LEGO
competition and now he's doing a computer degree at the university
- so it inspired him."

The winning team from the event will get a place in the UK and
Ireland National FLL Final which will be held on January 21 at
Loughborough University. The school who takes that title will
represent the country in the international finals in America.

Ms Anderson said: "It's a huge competition in America - there
were three research projects last year which were patented - so
these young people are the cutting edge of science."