A celebration of women in engineering saw hundreds of youngsters get hands on with science.

Pupils from across West Cumbria flocked to Energus, at Lillyhall, to enjoy a day of activities to mark International Women in Engineering Day yesterday.

Organised by Gen2, the tasks involved blowing up a balloon through pedal power, a dance mat and a basketball challenge.

The day aimed to encourage more girls to consider a career in engineering.

"At Gen2 we have always heavily promoted engineering as a career option to females," said CEO Mike Smith.

"We have trained many female engineers since our inception and they have gone on to have very successful engineering careers.

"Employers are very supportive of our female engineers and we would like to continue to grow the number of female engineering learners."

The company take on around 450 apprentices each year and 15 per cent of these are female. This is compared to the national average of 3.8 per cent.

Friday's activities were ran by Gen2's female engineers and apprentices, and included a tour of the training centre.

Mr Smith said: "In addition to the female engineering apprentices approximately 50 per cent of our engineering degree and honours degree students are female.

"GSK, Sellafield Ltd and Innovia Films have all helped to support the events today. Opportunities such as the National Women in Engineering Day help us to promote the benefits to other females.

"Engineering is a fantastic career option, regardless of whether you are male or female and we hope these events will encourage others to seriously consider engineering as a career."

National Women in Engineering Day was launched by the Women's Engineering Society in June 2014 to celebrate its 95th anniversary.

It wanted to highlight the great opportunities for women in engineering, at a time when there is an engineering skills shortage.

For more information about women in engineering events, visit www.gen2.ac.uk