With plastic building blocks scattered across desks, members of the Cape Robotics middle school team were intent on their work last week.

Some worked alone, quietly. In their heads, they could see the finished design. Others worked in teams, debating the best possible building strategies. Some others sat back, arms crossed, staring at their pile, as if willing the blocks to build themselves.

These Lego gurus use building blocks, wheels, wires and computer chips to build mechanical “bots” to climb, ride curbs, follow lines, build bridges, and possibly earn the title of fastest or strongest “bot.”

Evan Thayer, Cape Elizabeth teacher and founder of Cape Robotics is readying his first wave of middle school builders for a competition at the end of April. Thayer said this is the first introduction to what he hopes will be a lasting interest in building robots. Thayer is expanding his high school program into the middle school and hopes someday to have a team at each school.

Through Cape Robotics, Thayer sees potential to identify future engineers, though for now, as he reminds himself frequently, that the most important objective for students is fun.

Thayer and others realize that though there are plenty of opportunities for athletes in school, there aren’t many programs fostering student engineers.

A former computer programmer, Eric Jensen, donates his time to Cape Robotics because he loves engineering and he wants to support an academic forum for kids to test their building skills and aptitude. “It gives you a real chance to make something work,” he said.

He also admits he likes playing with the toys. “I never had the chance to play with anything close to this,” he said.

For parent Karen Hindall, the Cape Robotics team is an outlet for her son Zach’s passion for building. “When he’s in that room full of Lego builders, all of a sudden he’s in his element,” she said.

Hindall is grateful to Thayer for thinking beyond athletics. “Cape is great out on the sports field,” she said. “But it’s nice to build programs for kids who aren’t out there.”

Cape Robotics member Conor Dodd, a junior at Cape High, called himself “kind of obsessed” with building. Dodd said he’s built over 50 bots in the past year. His latest creation is a dog- dubbed “Spot the bot.” A robotic dog, it walks, opens and closes its mouth and wags its metallic tail. For Dodd, the “joy is in the building.”

Thayer started Cape’s first high school robotics team last spring with a $4,500 grant from the Cape Elizabeth Education Foundation and donations from the High School Parents Association and the Cape Elizabeth school system. With that money, he purchased 10 Lego Mindstorm Robotics kits and two Radio Shack VEX robotics kits. Both Lego and Radio Shack sponsor robotics competitions nationwide.

These kits include blocks, wheels and computer chips, which students program for a specific task and install in their bot. Bots are mobile and usually resemble some kind of vehicle. Among other tasks, students can program their bots to climb slopes, fight and follow surface edges.

Prior to college, Thayer said there were few opportunities for him to experiment with building. It was something he wishes he’d had in his formative years. For some kids, building robots is the hook that engages them academically, said Thayer.

Brothers Josh and Alex Harper say they’ve always played with Legos. Fifth grader Alex Harper said he’s collected Legos since he was three. “I have over a billion behind the couch,” stored neatly, he added.

Alex and Josh Harper spent hours of their days designing entire Lego cities. “We just used our imaginations,” Alex Harper said as they constructed New York City hotels, roadways and cars.

Thayer envisions a Cape Robotics team spanning all grade levels and hopes to recruit Pond Cove kids at a two-week summer course offered through Community Services.

The middle school branch of the Cape Robotics team will test their bots at the Southern Maine Robotic Track Meet sponsored by the University of Southern Maine on April 29.

Though the Harper brothers aren’t sure what they want to be when they grow up, the one thing they are sure of is that they want to continue building bots for Cape Robotics.

Building partners Petar Filipor and Brian Chiozzi struggle to implement a plan of action for their bot, which they’re building to compete as the fastest.Frankie Underdown plays with “Spot the bot,” built by Cape High School junior Conor Dodd. Dodd has been helping the middle school Robotics members prepare for their first competition at the end of AprilFrankie Underdown built his slope climbing bot in three hours.