THREE girls from western Sydney have just proved the worth of being schooled at home.
They won a top award at the recent First Lego League Open European Championships held in Mannheim in Germany.
Two sisters, Madeleine, 11, and Charlotte McKee-Wright, 9, from Lalor Park, and their friend, Jaye Heimlich, 9, from Dundas Valley, were taught by their parents from an early age.
The three-girl team — called the KookaGumJoeys — were awarded medals and trophies for coming second in the Core Values: Gracious Professionalism category.
Madeleine said they had learnt a lot from competing in their first international championship.
"It will prepare us for more competitions and possibly a future in the science and technology world," she said.
"We learnt far more about science by building a Lego robot than we could have at any school."
The three girls competed against 68 of the world's best teams at the Open European Championship in this event that promotes science, technology and engineering.
They designed, built and programmed a robot made out of Lego to perform several "missions" within 2½ minutes on a one metre by one metre playing field.
They were picked to compete in Germany after winning the Australian National Championship at Macquarie University last December when they competed against over 200 teams from across Australia.