When year 6 students from Forest Lodge Public School started up their robot at a competition in Sydney this month, it malfunctioned and started shooting rubber bands at the judges.

"Everything that could have gone wrong went wrong, the battery ran out and the coding malfunctioned," 11-year-old Sirapuk Wateesatogkij said.

Year 6 students Caleb Jeremy, Sirapuk Wateesatogkij and Monty Rooney from Forest Lodge Public School are heading to Japan to represent Australia in an international robotics competition. Credit:Dominic Lorrimer

"We just decided to have another go, it took a while but we fixed it in the end."

Forest Lodge was the only primary school team in the competition and beat most of the high schools.