FARMINGTON — Elementary and middle school students involved in an international robotics competition are learning about cutting-edge biomedical engineering and how science is being used to build healthier, stronger bodies and overcome illnesses and disabilities.

Sounds hard but the FIRST Lego League challenge fuses hands-on learning and research with fun and teamwork to help students meet the challenge and compete at state and regional tournaments. FIRST stands for “For The Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology.”

In Maine, more than 50 teams will compete Dec. 11 at the Augusta Civic Center.

A total of 171,000 students, ages 9 to 14, from 50 countries are participating in this year’s challenge, according to the nonprofit organization’s website.

Last year, a team from the Jay Middle School won first place in the state and competed at the nationals. Second place was awarded to a team from Cascade Brook School in Farmington.

This year, Cascade Brook School is entering two teams, Mt. Blue Middle School /Cascade Brook has one, and Jay Middle School will have four competing.

The theme, “Body Forward,” requires teams to select a body part, system or function and research biomedical engineering work being done by scientists, engineers and doctors to improve, repair or heal those parts that are diseased or damaged. Students also have to suggest their own innovative solution to the problem and share it with their community through skits, talks and presentations.

In the months leading up the tournament, teams build a robot and program it using patented Lego software. It has to accomplish about 15 biomedical-related “missions” laid out on a regulation, 4- by-8-foot playing field table within 2.5 minutes.

The tasks on the game board range from repairing a severe fracture using special bone-growing cells to installing a pacemaker in a heart to devising a foolproof way for patients to dispense their own medications. All the components and the robot are built according to the competition manual out of Lego building blocks.

Judges evaluate the entries according to the robot game, a five-minute presentation on the project, team spirit and teamwork.

The middle-school team from Farmington, known as The Smokebusters, chose to focus on the function of the lung; teenage smoking; and work being done to repair damaged lungs.

On Tuesday, they performed their skit and put their robot through its paces for the Mt. Blue Regional School District Board of Directors. Last week, they put it on for third-graders at the Mallett School in Farmington.

“We decided to study the lungs and how you get your air, and what would happen to your lungs if you smoked all your life,” a team member told the third-graders seated in chairs and on the floor in one classroom.

“Big kids smoke because they think it looks so cool,” one team member said in the skit. “But there are 4,000 chemicals in each cigarette, and when you smoke one, that stuff goes into your lungs and can cause birth defects and cancer.”

The message was not to start smoking.

The team’s research has taken them into the world of nanotechnology — the science of building devices, such as electronic circuits, from single atoms and molecules; regeneration, where brain cells of mice are being used to create human lung tissue; and to prosthetic lungs that one day may replace damaged lungs, they said in their presentation.

They also are learning how lungs are damaged by tobacco smoke. Carol Lee, a visiting Chinese professor teaching elementary science education at the University of Maine at Farmington has led them in science experiments, including one that used a vacuum device.

The unit the students built drew smoke in from a cigarette and expelled it out through a cotton ball that became heavily stained by tar and disintegrated by the chemicals in the tobacco fumes, they said.

The local teams are supported through donations and coaches are volunteers, parents and teachers.

Smokebuster members are Mitch Guillaume, 12, who has been involved in the Lego League for four years; Dylan Roberts, in his second year on a team; Ben Andrews; Alex Morrell; Grace Andrews; and Nicole Pires. They have been meeting three times a week with parent coaches Ellen and Jan Roberts and Linda Beck.

Ben Andrews, 10, the youngest Smokebuster, said he opted to join the more experienced middle school team because he thought it would be more challenging to keep up with kids who were veteran competitors.

“I figured if I was going to learn about this, I wanted to learn from kids who knew more than me,” he said at a work session at the Roberts’ house on Sunday. “I love Legos, and when I joined, the team was not what I thought it would be. But it turned out to be a lot better.”

According to the FIRST website, inventor Dean Kamen founded the organization in 1989 to inspire an appreciation of science and technology in young people. Based in Manchester, N.H., the organization designs accessible, innovative programs to build self-confidence, knowledge and life skills while motivating young people to pursue opportunities in science, technology and engineering.