Four pupils from Holbrook Primary School have won the chance to take part in an international programming and robotics competition in Brazil.

Katie Cuddihy, Lucy Ferguson, Andrew Collett and Jessica Logan have been learning about programming at an after-school club since September last year.

After attending an event at BT’s Adastral Park in December they were inspired to enter the inaugural Junior RoboCup Rescue league last month.

They had to build a robot which would overcome a series of challenges, with their entry managing to win the competition.

And now the quartet’s next step is to represent Great Britain in the RoboCup 2014 world final in Brazil.

But they need to successfully raise £12,000 for the trip before they can jet out to South America on July 17.

The team are managed by Richard Williams, computing co-ordinator who introduced coding to the school in the autumn to meet the requirements of the new computing curriculum.

Mr Williams said: The national curriculum for computing says children should be taught to explain how simple algorithms work and to detect and correct errors in algorithms and programs.

“This is how the children have improved their codes for the competition and how they were able to win.”

“When we started programming back in September our scores were really low,” Katie said. “But by adjusting our codes and adding new commands we managed to rack up our scores and win the coding competition.”

Lucy added: “Going to Brazil would be a really fun and enjoyable experience. We’re really looking forward to meeting different children from all around the world.”

“Since we have worked so hard and progressed to the national competition it would be a real shame if we couldn’t go,” Andrew said.

And Jessica said: “I feel really proud to part of the first team to represent Great Britain at CoSpace and wouldn’t it be great if we could show that Britain is the best in the world?”

A series of fundraising events are being planned to try and raise the cash. They are also looking for sponsorship.

A Virgin Money giving page will soon be active on the school’s website, www.holbrook-pri.suffolk.sch.uk.

After the event the school will benefit from the experience being shared with younger pupils and other local schools to encourage greater participation in programming and coding.