Photos by Marcus Yam | The Roanoke Times

Michael Harlan (from left), Kristina Harlan, Aimee Stulz, Anastasia Stulz and Audrey Stulz, 8, experiment Saturday with the Bioloids King Spider's tracking sensors during Robotics Day.

Michael Harlan, 11 (from left); Kristina Harlan, 15; Aimee Stulz, 10; and Anastasia Stulz, 7, listen Saturday to Virginia Military Institute professor David Livingston explain his Bioloids King Spider at the Science Museum of Western Virginia.

Student Michael Harlan makes adjustments to his group's Lego NXT on Saturday before a trial run during Robotics Day at the Science Museum of Western Virginia in Roanoke.

Abbie Strickland's robot picked up a polar bear whose iceberg home was melting amid the Arctic's alarmingly warm weather of late. The machine's strong mechanical arms carried the white bruin to a safer frozen slab and gently deposited it.

"The polar bears' habitat is being destroyed by higher temperatures caused by the pollution of our climate," said the fifth-grader at Colonial Elementary School in Blue Ridge. "We need to find ways to help the bears," she added.

Of course, the polar bear was plastic and small enough to fit in the palm of her hand, the robot only the size of a shoebox and the iceberg merely a white-painted tabletop. Yet the concept of developing engineering ideas to combat all-too-real environmental threats was the essence of Robotics Day demonstrations at the Science Museum of Western Virginia on Saturday.

Teams of mostly 6- to 14-year-olds gathered to show their skills in using battery-powered Lego kits to build robots as they prepare for competitions later this month in Blacksburg, Charlottesville, Harrisonburg and Lynchburg.

Organized by the First Lego League, an international program, the demonstration and competitions aim to engage students in research, engineering and solving real-world problems through robotics.

Four area teams showed off their robots Saturday, including the Climate Starz of Read Mountain Middle School in Botetourt County. One team member, sixth-grader Jeffrey Hawley, said his group has spent more than 40 hours during the past five weeks on designing, building and practicing various environmental missions with their robots.

This year's competition, "Climate Connections," requires teams to focus on links between humans, science, resources and communities to improve climatic conditions.

Among Jeffrey's favorite solutions: "carbon sequestering," symbolized when the Starz' robot pushes a small ball -- dirty gray in color -- several feet across a table and into a storage area where it can't hurt the atmosphere.

Saving the polar bear and clearing away carbon are among 16 exercises that the robotic teams must take on. Perhaps none is more symbolic than when the robot is required to guide a gold-colored ball around obstacles for the length of the 12-foot table. The gold ball symbolizes elusive research funding.

In 2007, a Smith Mountain Lake-area team called the Energetic Quakers won third place for robot design in the state-level contest. Prizes in the regional contests are usually ribbons and plaques. Statewide winners get trophies built with Legos. Legos are colorful plastic building blocks manufactured by Lego Group, a company based in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Using Legos in robotics is gaining popularity as an educational tool around the nation and in Western Virginia public schools. The practice is increasingly seen as a way to get students hooked on engineering.

For example, Roanoke school officials plan to start a mechatronics class next year -- a combination of mechanical and electronic engineering -- that would incorporate robotics. In Montgomery County, the school system has teamed up with Virginia Tech to offer a yearlong high school robotics class.

In the FIRST Lego League, teams are coached by adults who are usually parents, engineers and teachers. Not all the grown-ups have science or technical backgrounds. For example, Debbie Harris, first-year coach of the Starz, is a sixth-grade social studies teacher who found her team to be largely on automatic pilot.

"They will draw up the designs for the robots," equipped with the accessories they need -- various arms and tools. "And then they just go off and make them in no time," she said.

Students make the robots from $325 Lego kits designed to manufacture such miniature machinery. The kits were donated for this area's teams by the NewVa Corridor Technology Council. Cory Donovan, executive director of the nonprofit economic development group, said the competition can "bring out the research and development talent in kids that will lead to a more skilled work force in the future."

On Saturday though, the children, while intent on their robots' idealistic missions, were mainly having fun. Teams loudly cheered on their mini-machines while the adults stood back from the exhibition table.

In fact, the competition's rules don't allow the coaches or other adults to touch the robots or other materials when the teams are in action.

"It's really their show," said Kevin Hines, a coach for the Colonial Elementary team who is an optical engineer.

Indeed, as the robots whirred through their assignments, the children kept all eyes on their machines. Except to share the joy of a successful mission with their parents or other adults, the youngsters didn't glance over their shoulders. Like most scientists exploring the future, they never looked back.