Students from across the five boroughs took part in a competition Sunday where they used Lego materials to design and build robots and learn about science and technlogy in the process. NY1's Mahsa Saeidi filed the following report.

PS 705 fifth grader Emil White and her team have spent more than two months designing, building and programming a Lego robot.  Now they say they dream of a future in engineering and technology. 

"I have always wanted to know how things work around me," White said.

"I wanted, used to be, play sports but now I want to be an engineer now," said Ryan Venning, a fourth grade student at PS 705.

"I wasn't really interested in it because I didn't know what it was really about but now I do and I'm really interested in it," said Tarjay Martin, a fourth grade student at PS 705.

Over 400 elementary and middle school students competed in the First Lego League Brooklyn Qualifier on Sunday. The event is hosted by the non-profit NYC FIRST, in partnership with the NYU Polytechnic School of Engineering.

Graduate Student Anthony Brill coaches Emil's group. 

"I tell them every time I come I'm a college student, I go to NYU, and then I bring them to my school and you should see the sparkle in their eyes," Brill said.

"This is our research board and it might look a little complicated at first but it's really simple," said Dylan Tyler, an eight grade student at IS 318.

In addition to working with robots, Dylan's team is developing a program to help kids with ADHD. 

"Basically they have trouble with convergent thinking, meaning they can't stay on one subject which makes it hard to do math," Tyler said. "We've worked like many weeks, sometimes we even stayed through Saturday to work."

Other projects examine everything from how to cure cancer to harnessing energy using rain. 

The hope is that these students are the science and technology leaders of tomorrow.  

"Now you can even ask my father, I'm addicted to it, and all I can do is talk about it," White said.

About half of the teams will proceed to the next round of the competition which takes place on March 14 at the Jacob Javits Center.

Everyone is welcome to come and cheer them on.