Part of a bizarre coming-of-age ritual? No. Simply a mind-expanding way to spend a week of a long, hot summer.

Teams of two boys created and built robots out of Legos, then directed them using Bluetooth technology and laptops as the robots played an awkward but exciting game of soccer.

“Robotics with Lego Mindstorms” — offered for basic, intermediate and advanced levels — is one of many unusual, specific programs at Cary Academy’s Summer Quest day camp program. From “Go Green — Save the Endangered Animals” to “Podcasting and Audio Creation,” “Octopus’ Garden” to “Video Game Development,” rising kindergartners through high schoolers can find something to bend their minds.

“Students can pick and choose; they can be exposed to a variety of hobbies throughout the summer,” said Stephanie Dungan, Cary Academy’s auxiliary programs director and director of Summer Quest. She said about 900 students will come through the program this summer; 75 percent do not attend Cary Academy during the school year. About 220 programs, both full- and half-day, are offered over a six-week period.

Upstairs, silence reigned in one classroom as students focused on completing “Save the Endangered Animals” brochures, full of facts about animals ranging from polar bears to dung beetles. Using noncopywrited materials, students also created a 30-second to one-minute public service announcement about what they have learned. One slick PSA created by an eighth grader urged viewers to stop offshore drilling in North Carolina.

In the classroom next door, teams of three scurry to figure out clues and complete their mission — they are part of “Amazing Virtual Race Around the World.” They have been given a virtual $35,000 to book tickets for three people and “fly around the world” using clues and researching through Google Earth.

Dr. Joselyn Todd, seventh-grade science teacher at Cary Academy, and her twin sister, Jennifer Black, a vice principal in Kansas during the school year, created the projects and oversee the two classrooms. Todd said one of the best things about Summer Quest is that administration and organization of the camp is so good that she was able to focus on the curriculum and individual students.

“It takes all of the department — technology and facilities,” Dungan said. Former Cary Academy students work as counselors and lunch helpers and complete administrative tasks.

Students are not the only ones who expand their minds. “I get to try things here as an experiment,” Todd said.

Dungan added, “Many teachers learn a new skill to use during the school year.”

Todd said she and fellow Cary Academy teacher Eric Himburg, leader of the soccer robots, use what they have learned. “Now Eric and I have built robotics into our school year; it’s synergistic.”

Himburg also heads an extracurricular robotics club.

Some of the students cheering on the robots plan to join the Cary Academy club; others look forward to next summer.

“This is the second [camp] I’ve taken this summer,” said Charles Robson, 11. “Last summer, I took the basic.”

Robson attends Davis Drive Middle School and has a set of the robots at home. The camp has inspired him to look into robot competitions in the Triangle area.

Elliot Kuan, 12, attends Cary Academy. “I did [robotics] at my old school,” he said. “It’s really fun. I might take robotics as a club.”