TWO Wirral teenagers are gearing up to represent the UK in an international robot competition in Japan.

Anna Sass and Lily Hudson, both students from Prenton High School, won the National Junior RoboCup Rescue Line Competition with their robot ‘Alan’.

The 15-year-olds built and programmed the robot after overcoming last minute hitches and thinking on their feet.

Anna said: “We were the only girls in the competition, we worked so hard to make it happen.

"Even when our teacher left in December we soldiered on and won the final."

Now the girls will head over to the international competition in July but need to raise £5,000 in order to travel to the finals.

Lily said:"We desperately need to fundraise to be able to get to Japan.

"We would like to think our achievements will inspire others to think of science as a career choice and learning robotics and coding is really cool.”

Over the last eleven years Prenton High School has had pupils going to compete in the UK RoboCup competition seven times with many students going on to gain employment in science and engineering.

A spokesman for the Prenton High School said: "The school’s achievement in the field of robotics cannot be underestimated as, each time we have competed for the UK title our teams have beaten many competitors who were not only older but teams of boys and teams from grammar and private schools.

"With such a rich history of success we are fully committed to making this happen for our current Roboteers tomorrow's engineers, tomorrow's women leading in the field of technology.

"We are proud that our RoboCup girls have gone on to be successful in higher and further education – and gained employment in the mainly male-dominated fields of Science and Engineering.

"Now we have the immediate challenge of raising funds to make this happen.

"Only with funding and with support can this become a reality.

"Only with financial backing can we really make a difference and provide the girls with this once in a lifetime experience.

"Once again, we want to put Prenton and the Wirral on the map and to
champion girls' achievement and success."

To donate visit www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/annalillynagoya2017