LIVERMORE FALLS — Over 20 vendors came out on a beautiful Saturday for the annual Apple Pumpkin Festival.

Everything from local business, food trucks, live music, clubs and sports groups from Spruce Mountain High School came out to the recreation field to celebrate the start of fall. There was lots to do for the kids, including a giant tiger slide towering over a smaller bouncy house, rock climbing and lots of other games.

Members of the Spruce Mountain Area Robotics Team were selling snow cones and offering a few activities for folks to try, including a tool-identification game.

“We feel kids today don’t have a lot of hands-on training,” said Dan Lemaux, the faculty member of the team. “For this game, tools are laid out on a table, for younger kids who can guess some of the tools, they walk away with a Smarties candy; for the older kids who can name all the tools, they get to take home a vibrating tooth toy.”

There are currently 40 members of the school’s SMART program, Lemaux said, every one of who has been trained in safety. The team visits every third-grade class in RSU 73 and teaches a UL safety training program, where students learn about fire and water safety though movies made by Disney, he said.

“We bring fourth-graders to our shop and make key racks and teach them how to measure,” Lemaux explained. “This helps to spark in interest early in the younger students.”

The team earned three awards last year, including the Engineering Inspiration Award. It’s important to the team to inspire the next generation to go into engineering, Lemaux said. Attending events like the Apple Festival is a great opportunity to get young kids to see and learn something they might never have seen before, he said. 

On Nov. 21, SMART will host the first regional qualifier for the LEGO team, which is comprised of middle school students who are mentored by high school students. They will welcome around 700 visiting students and hold an array of different challenges.