Budding young Cumbrian engineers have been taking part in this year’s Rotary Technology Tournament.

The event, held at Austin Friars School, Carlisle, and supported by BAE, was one of many such competitions taking place across England.

Andrew Meggs, a past president for the Rotary Club, said: “It opens up a possibility for a future in engineering.

“It might just spark something in them and they might just think, ‘I like engineering’.”

The day involves teams of students working together on a project. The young adults are expected to design, develop and build a device with the materials supplied.

And it is not only for the children: the teachers work as a team to complete the same task. Michael O’Roarty, Head of Design and Technology at Richard Rose Morton Academy, said: “I like being up against the children, we can show our skills off and hopefully they get a chance to beat us.

“When it comes to testing, the students want to see us fail, we have to maintain our own standards.

“The task this year is hopefully pretty straight forward, last year’s was a bit more challenging. I think this one is achievable in the time we have.”

Mark Sisson, 14, from William Howard School, Brampton, said: “It’s better than doing normal lessons, it’s fun to do and I like working with my hands. We struggled at the start, trying to get an original design, but we finally got it cracked.”

Myesha Pearson, 13, from Austin Friars said: “It’s really interesting, it tests how we’re working together, I have never done anything like this before, so it’s really different to what I would normally do.”