LOS ALAMOS — As he watched his colleague use a remote-controlled robot to make pancakes on Wednesday, Santa Fe police officer Paul Ytuarte noted the tedium of the task at hand.

"It's way more fun to be blowing stuff up," he said.

Fun, however, is not the main objective of the Robot Rodeo, which is being held this week at a remote Los Alamos National Laboratory tech site, not far from the entrance to Bandelier National Monument. Hours of hands-on training at the controls of $225,000 robots used for bomb and hazardous waste detection and disposal are provided during the three-day annual event.

Six bomb squads — from Santa Fe police, Albuquerque police, New Mexico State Police, Farmington police, the Los Alamos lab and the New Jersey State Police — are taking part in the training, which is scheduled to run through Friday. The teams guide their robots through 10 different challenges, including an obstacle course, simulated attacks, cooperation exercises and activities designed to test abilities to minutely control the robot, said Chris Ory, a member of the LANL hazardous devices team.

The latter is where the pancake-making task comes into play. Two teams — one from the Santa Fe Police Department and another made up of state police officers — went head-to-head on Wednesday morning.

The teams controlled the robots while watching video monitors in separate vehicles parked outside a small building. Inside the building, two judges sat at a table at the back of the room with syrup and butter at the ready. On either side of the room were tables holding electric griddles, pancake mix in a pitcher and a spatula. Each team had to first mix the batter, then cook four pancakes — two for each judge — and bring the two plates to the judges' table.

"Chris (Ory) is a warped individual," Santa Fe police Sgt. Troy Baker, head of his bomb squad, said when asked if he'd ever made pancakes via robot before. "You're thinking, 'You're gonna do that with a robot?' "

More than an hour into it, the state police robot delivered one pancake to the judges. Valine Griego and Erica DeSmett, coordinators from Sandia National Laboratory, turned up their noses at the creation.

"It's only cooked on one side," Griego said.

After tasting it, she proclaimed herself less than impressed and shooed the robot away.

"It wasn't even so-so," she said. "It was just so."

Jose Salazar, the state police bomb squad assistant commander who'd been controlling the robot, later came in for a sample.

"I'm glad it's pancakes and not public safety," he said, after sampling his fare.

That left just the Santa Fe team, who diligently labored for more than 45 more minutes in their quest. Officer Scott Waite painstakingly maneuvered the robot through the pour and the flip.

The flip, in particular, took some time to perfect, and Waite's technique of scooping it from the side seemed to work well. He caught a lucky break when his second pancake broke in half during the flip, and he was able to save both sides and create two pancakes for the price of one.

With time running out, Waite decided to forego the fourth pancake and deliver the three that were already done. The robot delivered the first plate of two perfectly.

Griego, DeSmett and honorary judge Mary Salazar, a LANL intern, poured the syrup and sampled the pancakes.

"They're pretty good," Salazar said.

"Oooh, that is good," Griego agreed.

As it turned out, the Santa Fe team was the first of the four teams who participated in the exercise Wednesday to successfully cook, flip and deliver pancakes.

Baker said Santa Fe's bomb squad responds to about a dozen calls a year in connection with bombs or hazardous material.

Contact Jason Auslander at 986-3076 or jauslander@sfnewmexican.com.