Excited children are one step away from jetting out to America to take part in a Lego tournament.

The first leg of an international Lego tournament took place at Energus, Lillyhall, this week.

Children aged nine to 16 competed to harness their problem solving skills, to programme robots - and work together.

Schools from west and north Cumbria took part in the space themed challenge, with Carlisle's Austin Friars School winning the tournament on Wednesday and St Bees Village School taking the trophy on Thursday.

Austin Friars and St Bees will join teams from St Bernards in Barrow and Ulverston's Croftlands Junior School to represent Cumbria at the national finals in Bristol next month.

Winners of that stage will travel to America later this year to compete internationally.

Emma Sharp, headteacher at St Bees Village School, said she was extremely proud of the children's amazing achievements.

"We really need to sing the praises of our Lego team who have worked tirelessly for the past four months after school twice a week to prove exactly what being part of a team is all about," she added.

The competition encourages innovation and communication with marks awarded for a robot game, project and core values.

Robin Bell, with Assystem, was judging the robot design.

He said: “There has been an exceptional standard, even the most experienced teams are learning something from the new ones.

"The event is definitely worthwhile to encourage an engineering path.”

Fran Ward, a director of C-STEM Ltd, first organised an event three years ago, with just seven teams.

In the second year 23 teams took part, increasing to 43 in the third year and this year nearly 70 teams have entered. Next year Mr Ward would like around 100 teams to enter and increase the chances of a Cumbrian school getting to the world finals. He said: “It would be a dream come true if we have a Cumbrian winner.”

Businesses and organisations sponsor teams with entry costs, funding for robots and travel costs. Mr Ward said: “REACT Foundation have been very helpful and instrumental in supporting C-STEM and getting the word out to schools and businesses in the area.”

Pete Woolaghan, chairman of REACT Foundation, said: “It is the robotics and autonomous system technology for the future.

"It is no different to what they’re doing on Mars, using WiFi programs to power robots.

"The skill set is the same. It is undiluted fun.”

Angela Smith was at the competition with the LEGO legends team from Hensingham Primary.

It was their first time and they said it was amazing, they had worked together to solve problems, had found some of the challenges tricky, but fun.

Other contributors to the event include Sellafield, LLWR and Sir John Fisher Foundation.