The school year has just begun, but the work at the LigerBots never took a summer break. The new academic year brought with it a number of new team members and even a preview of this year’s challenge from FIRST. It’s called Steamworks (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37GBEBLfhWA), but that’s about all we know. Until the official unveiling of the game and the moment we can begin work on the new robot, the team will be spreading the message of STEM through numerous events.

One month into the new school year, the LigerBots have already hosted and attended many events. We recently had a booth at a local Whole Foods (http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/stores/newtonville), as well as at Newtonville Village Day (http://www.newtoncommunitypride.org/newtonville-village-day.html), where we sparked interest in both our robot and our team, while spreading the message of FIRST and STEM. The mechanical group revamped our 2014 and 2016 robots for exciting demonstrations to the public.

The LigerBots attended the MIT IDE Inclusive Innovation Awards (http://ide.mit.edu/), where team members talked about how they felt FIRST prepares them for their future careers.

We also had a fundraiser at Yogurt Beach, a local frozen yogurt shop, where a portion of the proceeds were donated to our team.

In November, the LigerBots will be hosting the Newton FLL Qualifier, a FIRST Lego League robotics competition, a competition for students, grades 4-8.

The LigerBots are currently in the preseason part of our year, when we  concentrate on various outreach projects, as well as preparing ourselves for the upcoming build season. We are going into classrooms at both high schools and recruiting students to expand our range of skill sets. Training our new members is very important to us, which is why we are running sessions for our new members in mechanical and business skills such as shop safety, soldering, and familiarity with electrical, mechanical software robot systems, running outreach events, writing grant applications, and meeting the public.