A SCIENTIST who spent five years building a robot in his garage to survey the seabed is about to hunt for a lost 16th Century wreck.

Robin Burrows will search off the Scilly Isles in July using his submersible remotely-operated vehicle (ROV).

He says the area he will be searching has more wrecks for its size than anywhere else in the world.

"There are several wrecks that went down that nobody has ever found," he said.

Mr Burrows has invested between £2,000 and £3,000 in building his ROV, Starfish, and has secured £2,000 in sponsorship from his employer, QinetiQ.

The 23-year-old communications engineer started building Starfish while studying at Worcester College of Technology five years ago.

Since then he has single-handedly soldered circuit boards, programmed micro-chips, welded a frame together and installed equipment to build the ROV in the garage at his Fruitlands home in Malvern Wells.

The 4ft-long vehicle is equipped with rotors, lights and leak detectors and can relay pictures from all around itself back to the surface. It is capable of descending to depths of 60 metres to spot potential hazards and help divers decide whether an area is worth exploring.

Mr Burrows has been visiting the area where the search will be held since childhood. He has made many friends, including one who is a commercial diver and will help with the expedition.

He hopes to discover ships known to have sunk, specifically a 16th Century man'o'war, but is not interested in the cash value of any finds.

He says he wants to bring back artefacts to the surface, research them and put them on public display in the local museum on St Mary's Island.

"I'm not interested in money," he said. "You never know what you're going to find, and when you do find something it's interesting to find what it is, when it got there and how it got there."

His long-term ambition is to be a marine archaeologist.

He is now seeking further sponsorship for a Towfish side-scan sonar, a torpedo-shaped machine that uses satellites to map lake and sea floors while being towed behind a boat. They cost around £4,000 and anyone who can help should e-mail scilly diver@yahoo.com.