MAYHEM RULES AT MINDSTORM MADNESS TOURNEY - Mindstorms Mayhem teammates won the first-place robot design trophy during the Nov. 19 Merrimack Mindstorm Madness FLL tournament. Team members include, back row from left - Katie Hammes, David Schunemann, Nathan Streeter of Bedford and Vicki Umenhofer. Front row from left - Ryan Simard, Melissa Gray, Amelia Jennings, Nicholas Hammes and Dan Umenhofer. (R. Weatherbee Photo)

Mindstorms Mayhem and More Mayhem, two home school FIRST LEGO League (FLL) teams with Bedford ties, have been researching renewable energy sources this year. Their hard work recently earned both teams first-place trophies at the regional FLL tournament in Merrimack on Nov. 19.

Part of this year's FLL "Ocean Odyssey" challenge is to research an ocean activity or resource and trace its impact on the health, biodiversity and productivity of the oceans.

Nathan Streeter, a Mindstorms Mayhem team member; Ken Streeter, team coach; and Ben Streeter, team mentor, are the Bedford residents part of this Milford-area team. Other students on the two teams are home schoolers from Amherst, Hampstead, Hollis, Lyndeborough, Merrimack, Milford and Wilton.

The Mindstorms Mayhem and More Mayhem teams' research revealed that renewable energy can be obtained from the ocean with current technology.

Research, teamwork and the technical design of the robot are indeed important. But the most highly anticipated component of FLL is the head-to-head robot competition.

This year, Mindstorms Mayhem and More Mayhem battled 20 other teams in a series of simulated underwater tasks.

Competitors designed and programmed their own LEGO robots for tasks ranging from submarine rescue and underwater pipeline repair to ocean cleanup.

The robots, which needed to complete the tasks without hands-on assistance, had two minutes and 30 seconds to complete nine missions.

The More Mayhem team, all first-time competitors, won the first-place robot performance trophy and took third for their research presentation on ocean energy. The veteran Mindstorms Mayhem team took first place for its technical expertise in robot design and engineering.

For details, visit mindstormsmayhem.org or firstlegoleague.org.