Last modified: Sunday, January 4, 2009 1:48 AM EST Area youngsters ages 8-13 competed in the FIRST Lego League robotics competition. The theme of this year’s competition was global warming. Kristin McMillen, above, one of the team leaders, works with students Hayden Noyes, 10, of Norfolk, Grace Remillard, 10, of Bellingham, and Lee Radics, 10, of Norfolk, on troubleshooting the Lego robot. (Staff photos by Mark Stockwell) Bee-ing innovative pays off BY SUSAN LaHOUD SUN CHRONICLE STAFF NORFOLK Eight-year-old Norfolk resident Hayden Noyes thinks he and fellow students just might have a solution to reduce a honey bee problem that has been affecting hives in the area and across the country. And they can give it to you in a five-minute presentation. That's the amount of time the team of students from Woodside Montessori Academy in Millis, ages 8 to 13, had to make their case to judges as part of the FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Lego League robotics competition. The competition is a global one created to get kids ages 9 to 14 excited about science and technology. It was the school's first year entering the competition, which started at the Blackstone Valley Technical High School in late November. The Woodside team, called the Lego Eaters, won first place for innovative presentation and placed 12th out of 64 teams to advance to the state competition on Dec. 20, where they won two awards: first place for innovative solution and a trophy for "most reliable robot," said a very proud Kathleen Gasbarro, head of the school. Started in 1989, each annual challenge has a theme and different tasks to fulfill: Build an autonomous robot that will, in 2 minutes and 30 seconds, complete programmed missions; analyze, research and invent a solution for a given challenge; and create a clever presentation for a panel of judges. This year's theme was climate connections. Essentially, it involved taking the theme of global climate change and applying it to happenings in the students' communities, Woodside teacher Kristin McMillen explained. The team's idea for the local connection was hatched through Gasbarro, the head of the Woodside School, who is also a recreational beekeeper. She served as a coach for the FIRST team along with McMillen and Noyes's mother, Diane Marguerite. It was during the winter of 2006-07 that some beekeepers began to report unusually high hive losses, ranging from 30 to 90 percent, according to the federal Environmental Protection Agency. There was a sudden loss of a colony's worker bee population with very few bees found near the hive. Without worker bees, the hive cannot sustain itself and will eventually die. The phenomenon does not just affect honey production. Honey bees are essential for crop production, responsible for pollinating more than 90 commercial crops, or about one-third of the human diet, according to the EPA. The Woodside team worked off one of the theories behind the dilemma, researching the connection between an increase in varroa mites to hive collapses and to global warming. "The theory is that global warming is causing these tiny mites to go farther into the north," McMillen said. "Everybody did everything," from research to building, said Noyes, a third-grader. "We rotated through the jobs." Part of the project involved a visit to Gasbarro's hives this fall, when the bees were calmer. Noyes explained that the mites carry viruses that can infect and kill the bees. So, the team's solution was installing a brush sprinkled with powdered sugar at the front of the hive where the bees enter. Not only might the bristles brush off the mites, but the sugar encourages bees to groom each other and causes the mites to fall off and die. Some beekeepers are already sprinkling their hives with the powdered sugar, McMillen said. Noyes noted that formic acid is also used to treat mites, "but they can only use it at certain temperatures." As part of the project, the students made a presentation to two members of the Norfolk County Beekeepers Association, including Howard Crawford of Franklin, who lost 12 hives last winter and three so far this year. He said the presentation by the students was good and something he might be willing to try. "You have to try something," Crawford said. Meanwhile, the students - Lee Radics of Norfolk, Grace Remillard and Christopher Annantuonio of Bellingham, Kira Schwartz of Medway, Max Arnone of Sherborn, Guru Prakash Singh Khalsa of Millis and Rigel Johansonjancovic of Medfield, as well as Noyes - also were setting up the board and programming a robot to complete the tasks to take on other aspects under the theme of climate change. Their robot is built from a package that includes motors and sensors. Legos are used in the construction of the elements on the board, like a house or flood water levees, as well as for the arms or attachments to the robot used in completing a task, McMillen explained. For example, one mission is to program the robot so that it will close and latch a window on a house, illustrating the need to save energy. Another activity is elevating a house to protect it from flood waters and moving the levees to block the water flow. The robot has to be equipped with the appropriate Lego attachments so that it will accomplish each mission. "I ended up programming the robot the most," Noyes said. The eight-member team and coaches worked on the robotics in his family's Norfolk basement. Under the rules of the competition, the harder the challenge, the more points amassed. "It's pretty easy," he said. "You just have to figure out what and how to get the robot to do it." SUSAN LaHOUD can be reached at 508-236-0398 or at slahoud@thesunchronicle.com.