It’s only a few days until the LigerBots’ first competition of 2018! We will compete with our robot, “Chronos,” on Saturday, March 17 from 10:30-5:00 and on Sunday, March 18 from 9:00-5:00 in the North Shore District Competition at Reading Memorial High School. The event is free and open to the public and will be live streamed on Twitch. All of our supporters are invited to come to sit and cheer with us in the stands and be escorted by a LigerBot on a “pit tour” of all the competing FRC robots.

Because of increased support we have been able to build not one, but two identical robots during the past three seasons, and this year we made our best use yet of this opportunity. In the weeks since we put Chronos 1 into its big plastic bag on the last day of build season we have finished our practice robot. Chronos 2 has been invaluable for driver practice, software development, and fixes and upgrades that we can install on Chronos 1 during the six hours of work we are allowed to do during an “unbag” session in our workshop. We’ve tightened belts, added camera mounts, and added wires and a cover to our intake.

Our software group has worked especially hard to make sure our autonomous mode is as good as possible.

A small but dedicated group has been developing add-on ramps to allow us to score even more points in the critical endgame.

And, even though we’ve been firing on all cylinders to perfect our robot, we have found the time to attend three outreach events during the past two weeks!

On Saturday, March 2 we volunteered at the Think Big STEM Inspiration event at the Newton Free Library. This event for middle and high school students offered the chance for students to talk to STEM professionals in small groups. The event was co-hosted by the John M. Barry Boys & Girls Club of Newton, Newton Free Library and Newton STEM.  We scooped ice cream donated by Cabot’s and hosted a table with info on the team–and took advantage of the chance to talk to people working in different STEM careers.

On Friday March 9 we displayed our 2016 robot at the Cabot School Invention Invasion alongside other projects made by elementary school students, including catapults, slime experiments, treats disguised as healthy food to trick parents, and personalized Pokémon cards. We launched balls from our 2016 robot to the kids and team members got to use their “elevator pitch” training to give parents information about the LigerBots and about FIRST programs appropriate to the ages of their children, including FLL and FLL Jr.  One LigerBot said, “I really enjoyed helping at the event, it was a fun way to get the community excited about STEM.”

On Sunday March 11 the LigerBots had a booth at the Boston STEM Fair at the Embassy suites in Waltham. It was a great event for kids of all ages to get exposure to STEM programs in the Boston area, and we were thrilled to have the chance to tell parents and kids alike about all that FIRST has to offer.

In addition to all of the technical work, the past few weeks of team meetings have included team-wide practice sessions in talking to judges and other FRC teams about the LigerBots, to help us vie for both technical and non-technical awards during our upcoming competitions. Our awards group is finishing our Chairman’s Award video and doing a dress rehearsal for the seven-minute presentation the group will give for judges at the North Shore District Competition. We’re looking forward to formally receiving the world-wide award for our Safety Animation video on Sunday afternoon. We can’t wait to “Power Up” this weekend!