By Jodi Hausen,Staff Writer

FARMINGTON – Seven members of Cascade Brook School’s Lego team were grilled by stand-in judges Tuesday in preparation for competition this weekend.

They had just presented their project about aquaculture to several adult advisers and coaches, who not only asked them questions about their research and learning, but gave them presentation tips.

“You need to sell this to the judges,” Holly Price told them. “They are the ones out here and they are the ones that you need to talk to,” she added.

Price started the First Lego League program in the district about four years ago and was a former coach. She was there Tuesday to give the kids advice.

The competition includes two parts – a robotic mission in which the students have to build and program a Lego robot to accomplish various tasks on a standardized course, and a researched presentation based on the year’s theme. This year, organizers of the international program chose the theme of “Ocean Odyssey.”

Farmington’s team of fourth-, fifth- and sixth-grade students will compete Saturday at the University of Southern Maine in Gorham against about 40 other teams from Maine, including two from Academy Hill School in Wilton.

Reading from a script and using two boards with stick-on key words, narrators and “sick fish” explain how aquaculture may not be the most environmentally sound or healthy way to raise fish. One board illustrated the problems; the other showed the team’s suggested solutions.

In preparing their exhibit, which they have only a few minutes to set up and present in competition, the students visited an aquaculture operation in Embden, watched a video and met with a marine biologist. It changed the way they think about aquaculture, they said.

It’s so much more than just taking fish out of water, fifth-grader Drew Salisbury said during a snack break.

“I didn’t think fish were that important, but they can really destroy the sea,” Max Richard agreed. “That’s how it is right now,” he said indicating the problem board, “and that’s how we want it to be,” he added, pointing to the team’s solutions.

The group also designed and built a robotic Lego “pooper scooper” that could collect fish waste and bring it to the surface to use on land as fertilizer, thereby avoiding nearby ocean pollution.

The Lego engineers also had to program their robot to accomplish a variety of missions. Using a software package, the group had to tweak numbers and choose various onboard devices to push structures, release fish and hook a Lego reef and pull it back to “base,” the starting point. They use hooks, bars, bumpers and a light sensor on their foot-long robot to make it happen. In competition they will have 2 minutes to complete all the missions and are penalized if they touch the robot any time other than when it is at base.

One strength of the program is the time element, according to Sunny Kay, wife of Roger Kay, one of the team’s coaches. The group has been meeting twice weekly since the beginning of school and even met over Thanksgiving.

“Kids get a problem that they get to work with over time,” she said as she watched the students move back and forth between the mission course table and two laptop computers.

“They get to fiddle,” she added.

But problem-solving, though a major component of the program, is not the only benefit.

Alex Chandler, a second-time participant, said he learned teamwork.

“Making sure you’re not taking over, and letting other people do things,” has been beneficial to him, he said.

“Sometimes I find myself doing it (taking charge) and stop myself,” he added.