Owls Head - A table filled with LEGOS doesn't exactly look like the work of rocket scientists, but perhaps budding ones.

"This is insanely complex. It takes like ten batteries. Seriously, the back of this is just batteries, batteries, batteries," said Skye Snowwalker, a seventh grader at Memorial Middle School in South Portland.

He, along with a team of students, tinkered around with some of their favorite toys to build a robot.

"What I really like about it is I'm working with something I use every day. I actually have a ton of LEGOS. I actually enjoy LEGOS," said classmate, Zachary Baker.

The work landed them an invite to this year's Manufacturing Summit, an event that brings together great minds, young and old.

"We really want to direct more students into those types of education program, so they're exposed to jobs in the manufacturing sector and high tech sectors," said Lisa Martin, executive director of the Manufacturers Association of Maine, which organized the meeting.

A handful of schools were selected based on their showing at national science or design competitions.

"It's been really cool. A lot of these people are just really interested, and it's fun to show them what we can do," said Dustin Jones, a sophomore at Spruce Mountain High School.

And whether their interest was in a robotic basketball player, as one group designed, or LEGOS, the goal was to get a passion for creating circulating amongst a younger generation.

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