A GROUP of Australian schoolboys has won the world championships in robotics, beating more than 100 teams from 30 different countries.

The team of Year 8 boys, from the exclusive Cranbrook School in Sydney’s eastern suburbs, had to design and build a robot and write a computer program to make it operate.

At the World Robocup Junior Championships yesterday in Osaka, Japan, they had to program their robot to navigate a three- dimensional house, complete with ramps and obstacles, following a catastrophe which had taken place in the house.

Victims had to be identified and rescued. The boys navigated the house faster than any other team, narrowly beating Japan and China for first place.

The win places Cranbrook, which has its own dedicated centre, at the forefront of the development of robotic skills among young people. Robotics is widely seen as a new and rapidly developing frontier for future scientists.

Team member Ronny Schneider said they had observed the other teams closely. “From that, we programmed new ideas and we improved our times significantly,” he said.

Cranbrook headmaster Jeremy Madin said robotics was “a great discipline”.

“It combines skills in science, information technology, computer programming, mathematics and communications,” he said.