YOUNG scientists took their innovative inventions to a national competition to compete against the best young minds in the country.

Alfie Benson and Abbie Pruden, from Harwich and Dovercourt High School, were the only youngsters from the Eastern region to make it through to the Big Bang UK Young Scientists and Engineers Competition last week.

The year 11 students qualified for the event at the Birmingham NEC with their Smart Mirror - a mirror which projects the time, weather and news stories on to the glass when you are looking at it.

It also includes a Bluetooth speaker and a version of a Amazon Alexa built from scratch from a Raspberry Pi computer.

Teacher Allan Bullock, said: "After another long day of competition on Thursday, in which Alfie and Abbie presented themselves brilliantly yet again, we finally came to the awards ceremony.

"Unfortunately, their project did not win any awards as the competition was exceptional.

"However, just making it to the national finals was a huge achievement and all the experience and contacts they gained from being there will serve them well in the future.

"The achievement of being 1 of the 200 schools represented from the entire country, and the only representative from the Eastern region is exceptional.

"Both students are a credit to themselves, the school, the town as well as the entire region."

The duo previously won the senior engineering award for the mirror at the Big Bang Fair in Chelmsford.