PUPILS from Hanley Castle High School were among Worcestershire pupils invited to a science day run by QinetiQ.

Students programmed robots, rescued trapped astronauts and were shown some of the amazing devices that have been developed at the Malvern site.

The team from Hanley Castle took first place in a competition among the schools.

Student Kieran Sagu said: "My experience at QinetiQ was extraordinary.

"We did five great activities, the first one was building cages to house angry birds, and attaching them to Lego robots which we had to program to do tasks like avoiding objects, following lines, going over ramps and throwing objects. The first activity was my personal favourite."

Di Hawkins, STEM leader at the school said: "It was a brilliant day with varied and interesting hands on science activities devised and run by the experts at QinetiQ.

"It was made even better by the students from HCHS beating the four other schools taking part to get first place and winning goody bags and vouchers for their efforts."