Playground fights could be about to step up a level.

Pupils at a Brighton school have been staying behind after classes to learn how to build and program robots.

They have even been shown how the high-tech toys can be set to attack mode and put into robot wars with each other.

But parents need not fear - the aim of the robotics club at Downs Junior School, in Rugby Road, is peaceful competition not battle.

Teachers will be showing pupils how to make machines which will compete in a series of Olympic events against each other - running, jumping and showing their strength.

Some of the school's most able ten and 11-year-olds have been picked to take part in the term-long project to test their maths, science and engineering skills.

Teacher Ian Lewis, who has been tutoring the club, said: "They've been working with some Lego kits building mini-robots which look a bit like Johnny Five from the film Short Circuit.

"At each session, I'm teaching them how to do part of the design and then they are having a go at doing it themselves."

The 16 children have been working in pairs with one of the £300 kits between them, each paid for by the school's parent-teacher association.

They have built the robots, given them names including Sam and Negative, and have been programming them using computers.

At each weekly session they have been learning different skills. After learning first to program the robots to move around in squares and triangles they have been building up to teaching them to run.

Mr Lewis said: "It sounds quite simple, but doing something like getting them doing triangles requires them to do some fairly complicated calculations. It is great for their maths skills."

The children have even been using noise, motion and light sensors which will stop, start and turn around the robots at the sound of a loud noise, movement of something in front of them or changes in the surface underneath them.

The machines can be propelled both by wheels and levers.

In preparation for the course, Mr Lewis worked out how the sensors could be used to pit the robots against one another in an attack mode.

Web editor Mary Kalmus said her daughter Sarah Kalmus-Hoye had been really enjoying the club.

She said: "She loves science so its been great for her to have something to challenge her. I think it's really good that the girls are having a chance to get involved as well as the boys."

  • Watch a video of the Robot Club by clicking here