Swindon's County Ground hosted a clash with a difference as scores of schoolchildren gathered for a robot war.

Swindon Town Football Club's study centre was the setting for the finals of the Lego Mars competition, which saw 12 schools from the South West battle for robotic supremacy.

Swindon's young designers included pupils from Dorcan Technology College, Covingham Park Junior School, Liden School, Broad Hinton School and St Mary's in Purton.

The youngsters designed and built their own robots, which were put through their paces in various tasks at the competition on Friday.

As well as demonstrating their design skills, the children gave presentations explaining how they created their robots.

Study centre manager, Martin Turnbull, 47, said the competition was a huge success.

Mr Turnbull, who organised the event with Ivan Kirk, head of design and technology at Dorcan College, said: "The children all had a brilliant time. It's amazing seeing what they can achieve.

"If you gave the same task to adults I'm sure they wouldn't have done as well. We saw some very sophisticated programming."

Tasks included programming the robot up a ramp, picking up a block and dropping it into the launcher and knocking over objects.

Dorcan Technology College was the overall winner and will head off to Leicester's Space Centre for the finals on December 9.

They will be joined by St Mary's Primary School who won two awards best robot design and best robot performance.