How do you get 350 fifth graders interested in science? Get them inventing toys of course.

Students from the South Bend Community School Corporation teamed up with first year engineering students at Notre Dame to create robotic pets.

It's called Irish Pet Project and it's goal is to get fifth graders interested in math and science while helping Notre Dame students with their design projects.

“It’s been very fun watching and hearing what should go into this toy, how it should work for them. These fifth graders have a lot of ideas and they want to see some of them turn out in the freshman projects,” instructor of first year engineering John Enszer said.

Engineering students will make the fifth graders' ideas a reality by using Lego's, one of the project's sponsors.

Another part of the project is the Domer Free Wheeling Derby, where South Bend and Notre Dame students design and race Lego vehicles to learn about energy and motion.