Ho Chi Minh City's Nguyen Binh Khiem Primary School has won the junior division at the International Robotics Competition in the Philippines.

Lieu Ngoc Bao Thanh, Dao Thien Long and Dinh Pham Ba Thi beat two teams from SJK C Jalan Davidson School in Malaysia to take the title for Vietnam on November 23.

In the senior division, three teams from SJK C Jalan Davidson swept away the competition to beat opponents from Vietnam, Malaysia and the Philippines.

It's the first time that a primary school team from Vietnam has won the regional robot competition.

The country sent 24 teams from the first National Robothon competition in Da Nang last month.

The competition, titled "Smart City", drew 70 teams from Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam and the Philippines.

Each participating team had an hour to programme an automatic robot to compete for two minutes.

They had to monitor their robots to build a "smart city" for the future.

Robotics programmes have been introduced to over 3,000 primary school students in Hanoi, Da Nang and Ho Chi Minh City since 2011.

Last year, Hanoi hosted the International Robotics Competition at the My Dinh Sports Complex.

Source: VNA