Year 14 students from Friends School Lisburn in Co Antrim won the UK robotics championship at the First Tech Challenge event held at the Copper Box Arena in London's Olympic Park.

Director of IT Errol Martin led the team. The students built their robot from scratch to complete tasks including selecting coloured balls in sequence and shooting them into a basketball net.

A Year 12 team from the school also competed and reached the play-off stages. A Year 13 team took part at regional level.

The school runs a robotics club started in 2021 with over 50 students.

Martin stated the teams spent extensive time after school, weekends and holidays on design, building, programming and testing their robots. He noted the Year 14 team's division win led to an overall victory in the final.

The Year 14 winners qualified for European finals in the Netherlands at the end of June. The school expects A-level exams to prevent their attendance.