PARIS — A passion for hiking — not only with humans but man’s best friend — led to the creation of the Trail Hounds’ successful safe hiking project, which landed the team the opportunity to represent Maine in the North American Open Championships for the FIRST LEGO League in May.

The Trail Hounds are part of the Oxford Hills Homeschool Robotics Club, which is comprised of seven home-schoolers in seventh through 10th grade from the greater Oxford Hills area. The team participates in the FIRST LEGO League’s annual challenge, which focuses on an innovative solution project, robot competition and core values. This school year’s theme is Animal Allies.

The team meets once and sometimes twice a week at the South Paris Baptist Church.

“We were all really passionate about hiking and most of us have dogs we hike with,” Ali Benoit, an eighth-grader from Paris, said.

“We chose to focus on that and bring hiking with dogs and people together and share awareness outside our community because most people don’t know how to hike safely with their dogs,” said 10th-grader Isaiah Carter of Harrison. He said potential problems hiking with canines could include getting lost and getting injured.

“For our project, we decided we wanted to address both issues of getting lost and getting hurt on the trail,” Amber Lynch, an eighth-grader from Paris, said.

The students designed a hiking safety vest for the dogs that not only can hold first-aid items but a Bluetooth tracker so owners can locate their dogs if they get lost. They also created a website, hikesafer.com, which gives advice on hiking safely with dogs, how to find your lost dog, what to do during hiking emergencies and even pet-friendly hiking locales in Maine.

The students have worked with Lee Dassler, executive director of the Western Foothills Land Trust, to post fliers in the area’s hiking spots with a QR code a smartphone user can use to access the Hike Safer website.

The fliers will be posted at “trails, mountains, even parks — anywhere you might encounter a problem with your dog,” Isaiah said.

As part of the competition, there is a course that each team’s robot must traverse and complete missions along the way. Isaiah said attachments for the robot can be built and they use an app to program the LEGO robot.

“There is a certain amount of points for completing each obstacle,” Amber said, noting they only have 2.5 minutes to complete as many missions as possible. “It’s all programmed so we can’t touch the robot. … We get three tries and they take our top score out of three.”

The kids agreed the toughest part of this competition is programming the robot.

“It takes quite a bit of work to get them to work but it definitely makes you feel good once they do,” Isaiah said.

To get to the North American Open Championships on May 19-21 at LEGOLAND in California, the Trail Hounds won competitions at the local and state level. They placed third in the regional qualifier held in Jay and then were awarded second place at the state competition.

The Trail Hounds have been around for six years and some of the longtime members were in disbelief they were going to the championships.

“We were so excited,” Amber said. “This is my fifth year — I was like, ‘Finally, we get to go!’” 

The Trail Hounds will compete against 70 other teams, comprised of students from the United States, Mexico and Canada. In addition to the robot’s mission, the team will give a 10-minute presentation on their safe hiking project. They will also be judged on team-building challenges and core values.

“(It’s) a three-day competition — they’re basically judged the whole time,” said Nancy Lynch, who is the coach of the Trail Hounds and mother to Amber and Caleb, who are team members.

The Trail Hounds have been raising money to pay for the trip, including selling first-aid kits they designed and put together and a paw protection salve they made, and setting up a GoFundMe campaign at www.gofundme.com/trailhounds.

Donations can be made by check to OHH Robotics and mailed to P.O. Box 282, South Paris, ME 04281. To purchase either of these products, email ohhrobotics@gmail.com.

The team has a goal of raising $15,000. As of Monday, March 13, $6,139 had been raised.

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Isaiah Carter of Harrison, Amber Lynch of Paris and Ali Benoit of Paris, members of the Trail Hounds, hold up pieces of their three-prong project for the FIRST LEGO League competition. The local home-schooled team will head to California in May to compete in championships.

Amber Lynch, an eighth-grade home-school student from Paris, face paints recently to raise funds for her team’s trip to the North American Open Championships for the FIRST LEGO League in May.

Ali Benoit, an eighth-grade home-schooled student from Paris, shows the Trail Hounds team robot programmed for the FIRST LEGO League competition. Ali, six of her teammates, and parent coaches will head to LEGOLAND in California in May to compete in the championships.