SCHOOLCHILDREN and air cadets will have the chance to engage with engineering at a Robotic Games championships.

The event, which will be held at aerospace engineering company Leonardo, in Christopher Martin Road, Basildon, is expected to be attended by more than 100 people.

The games, which are held from 10am on Saturday, July 1, are a brainchild of former Leonardo employee Peter Bennett, who has previously won Robot Wars. He designed the event to provide children with a simple but colourful introduction to science, technology, engineering and maths.

The children acquire valuable skills by creating customised hand-built robots, whose capabilities are then tested in a number of challenges which include robot football, robotic ‘tug of war’ and robot sumo wrestling.

A spokesman for Leonardo said: “Leonardo is holding this event to increase young people’s enjoyment and interest in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Maths) subjects, so that they might consider careers in this field in the future.

“We are delighted that girls will be attending this event, as we are aware that currently only 9 per cent of engineers in the UK are women. Industry has an important role to play in drawing young people to this field by providing enjoyable early experiences of STEM.”