Recently, a robot dog won a gold medal at the 116th International Invention Exhibition held in Strasbourg, eastern France.

The robot, designed and made by seven pupils in Harbin, capital of northeast Heilongjiang province, can raise alarm when it senses any spilled water or heavy smoke.

This was the first time that Chinese students won a gold medal in the top-level international invention competition.

"Many times my mother would forget to turn off the gas, which would make the pan burn and once she almost caused a fire," said one of the team members Bi Liangang, 9. "After that I came up with the idea to create a device that would alert the careless people."

His idea got the support from both his teacher Sun Jingwen and his teammates who have had similar experiences, including being flooded with water from the running tap which somebody forgot to turn off.

After several months of hard work, they succeeded.

"We completed the whole process independently, from design drawing to assembling units," said Qu Yuzhang, 10. "After failing dozens of times, we finally got a sensitive robot."

They also created an assistant robot which can receive signal from the main robot and raise alarm if the owner is far from the robot.

"I think it is more important for them to strengthen their operation abilities and innovation abilities through such activities," said Sun. "I believe they can make greater inventions in the future."