BUDDING boffins David and Rosie Johnson are following in their parents' footsteps.

The Johnsons, including dad Simon and mother Eleanor, are to be featured on TV, creating working robots for Techno-Wars as part of the BBC2's Science Week in the spring.

David, 13, attends St Bede's RC Comprehensive School in Lanchester. Sister Rosie, 11, goes to Lanchester EP Juniors. Dad Simon is an electronics and engineering lecturer at Durham University.

Their brief was to devise a computer-controlled mouse to find its way out of a maze and to create a performing robot gymnast.

The Johnsons affectionately call their robot Olga Korbut after the diminutive Russian gymnast who charmed the world in the 1972 Munich Olympic Games.