CHILDREN under ten, who designed, built and programmed a computer game to test people's reaction speeds, have won a national competition.

A team of pupils from Egglescliffe CE Primary School joined two other shortlisted schools in the national finals of the Raspberry Pi coding competition in London.

They impressed judges so much they were named the national winners of the contest, which was organised by PA Consulting Group to find the UK's best young coders and innovators.

The winning team, made up of 11 children from years three to five, created a game which pits competitors against each other to judge who has the fastest reaction speeds and reflexes.

Players have to watch the colour displayed on the screen, then hit the corresponding colour zone on a large playing board in front of them.

PA’s competition challenged schools to use a Raspberry Pi computer to drive innovation in sport and leisure. The competition was first launched in 2012 to try to encourage more children to consider a career in programming and coding, as there was a growing talent gap in the industry.

The Raspberry Pi was chosen because it is a low-cost computer which was designed to promote the teaching of basic computer science in schools.

Judges at the competition included BBC Technology correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones and former Tomorrow's World presenter Maggie Philbin.

Teacher Dan Mount, who took six of the children down to London for the finals of the competition, said: "I think the judges liked the fact the children clearly knew all about every stage in the process and were very excited about their invention. It has been child-led the whole way and they've done really well."

The school has won a £1,000 prize, but Mr Mount said the children were still deciding how to spend it.

"It will be spent on technology, but they haven't decided what yet," he said.

Anita Chandraker, who leads the digital service team at PA Consulting Group and is chair of the judging panel, said: “This year’s finalists produced really smart inventions which the judges thought could all easily be applied in the real world and it is this creativity and problem solving that is making the competition what it is today.”