ROBOTS are always good value for causing chaos in films, but, as Greenock schoolchildren have been learning, they may not be quite as nasty as they are painted by Hollywood.

Youngsters at St Andrew’s Primary took part enthusiastically in a Lego Mindstorms Challenge, in which they were taught how to programme robots, and watched in fascination as the devices moved around courtesy of a tiny computer and a couple of wheels.

It may be aeons, if ever, before we see quite as sophisticated a robot as the one played by Lance Henriksen in director James Cameron’s stupendous 1986 sci-fi thriller Aliens.

Lance was android, Bishop, who, volunteering for a hazardous mission to crawl along a possibly alien-infested tunnel, quipped: “I may be synthetic, but I’m not stupid.”

Cameron also directed artificial life-form Arnold Schwarzenegger in The Terminator (1984) and Terminator 2 Judgment Day seven years later, both of which still resonate today as people fret about the potential consequences of giving too much intelligence to robots.

Science fiction has a habit of becoming science fact. Look at how the hand-held communicators used in Star Trek morphed into ‘clamshell’-shaped mobile phones.

But robots taking over the world? We can probably relax in the knowledge that experts are more interested in using them to benefit humanity and teach youngsters like the St Andrew’s pupils about the benefits of science, technology, engineering and maths.

Don’t forget, however, that Arnie warned ominously in The Terminator: “I’ll be back!”