WILTON – Sure, winning would be cool.

But for the seven student members of The Fellowship of the Legos, just the chance to head south to the Peach State is a major victory.

In January, the Wilton-based team comprised of fourth- and fifth-graders from the Academy Hill School led by coach Kenny Brechner collected the coveted Director’s Award at the FIRST Lego League Maine State Tournament, beating out more than 40 other schools to earn the honor of representing Maine in the nationals.

Members of the team include Ashlan Ankers, Reid Brechner, Cameron Henkle, Eric Meyer, Luke Pane, Allison Brown and Deanna Geiger.

On Wednesday, they’ll have Georgia on their minds and butterflies in their stomachs as they board a plane to Atlanta to compete in the league’s international invitational tournament.

FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Lego League is an international program for students age 9 through 14 that engages teams in authentic scientific research and hands-on robotic design, culminating at the end of the season with high-energy, sports-like tournaments.

In 2003, over 42,000 children in North America and 12 additional countries participated in the program. The top teams from around the world will meet at the illustrious Georgia Dome next weekend for a two and a half day tournament.

“I think we’re going to hit pretty high,” the 10-year-old Meyer boasted Friday afternoon as the team got together for their last practice before the championship.

Like the tournament in Orono that earned the Fellowship a berth to Georgia, the invitational will have the theme “Mission Mars,” which challenges teams to research and design robots, made of Legos, to accomplish tasks similar to NASA’s rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, currently on the Planet Mars.

Sound tough? Well it is. In fact, raising the $8,000 in six weeks needed to fund the trip was probably the easiest challenge the team will have to face all year.

Team members admit that their chances of winning are about as far out as the chances of humans being able to inhabit Pluto any time soon.

But who cares. They’re just thrilled to have earned the privilege to pack their bags and Drifter, their robot, who is getting better at not drifting off course, for Atlanta.

“I’ve been counting the days,” Meyer admitted breathlessly. “Even if we get last place, it’s lucky we even made it.”

That sentiment is echoed by one of the team’s two girl members, 10-year-old Allison Brown. “Even if we did really bad, we wouldn’t really care because we still got to go.”

Brown said she is most looking forward to meeting the Super Nova Girls, the only all-girls team, which hails from California.

The Fellowship will be one of the youngest teams as many students in the competition are in middle school. They’re also unique because coach Brechner utilizes every team member during the competition, unlike most other teams who just use their strongest members.
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