The first LigerBots meeting of the year students included engineering challenge games, an opportunity to drive three of the LigerBots robots, and pizza! New students were excited to begin to learn web design and coding, mechanical engineering, and finance. Arushi one of our senior technical members, split rookies into groups and introduced them to the 2012 FIRST Robotics game, “Rebound Rumble”! The rookies brainstormed game strategy and choose mechanisms that they thought would help them win the game.

The LigerBots’ first fall meeting will be on Thursday, September 7, from 6:00-9:00 p.m. at the Newton South wood shop, room 9170. Meeting times in the fall are Thursdays at Newton South from 6:00-9:00 p.m. and Mondays in the Newton North engineering room from 6:00-9:00. New team members in grades 9-12 from the two Newton high schools are invited to any and all meetings. The first meeting will include engineering challenge games and an opportunity to drive three of the LigerBots robots! We are also seeking adult mentors, especially in the fields of web design and coding, mechanical engineering, and finance.

The LigerBots did outreach at the Newtonville Whole Foods last week during a “Giving Grill” fundraiser for Newton Schools Foundation. From 11-2 on a sweltering summer day the LigerBots showed their support for NSF, our parent organization and great ally of the team, and showed our gratitude to Whole Foods, a generous team sponsor. At the event, team members talked to community members about robotics and education, while demonstrating the 2016 competition robot, entertaining all who watched, including a dog! Many people, adults and kids alike, had a blast driving the robot.

The LigerBots sweatshirts are ready! If you ordered one, contact Coach Diane on Slack to arrange for pickup.

On Friday, June 16, the LigerBots attended Robotica, an annual conference put on by the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI). The LigerBots presented their 2016 competition robot alongside robots from major companies like Harmonic Drive, NASA and Elmo Motion Control. LigerBots team members also held informal demo sessions to groups of students from local vocational high schools who were attending the event. The students learned about the team and the specifics of the robots and some of them even got to drive the robot.

LigerBots CTO Erik talks about the LigerBots to vocational high school attendees at Robotica

The team ran a station in Newton Centre on Sunday for the Tour de Newton, a community biking event. This event takes cyclists and their families on an exploration of the 13 villages in Newton, stopping at a point of interest in each village to learn about Newton. The LigerBots gave cyclists at Newton Centre a chance to see our 2017 competition robot in action and learn about the team!

Cyclists from the Tour de Newton stop at the LigerBots’ Newton Centre station and collect the button they get at each stop on the route

The past week has been a busy one for the LigerBots! At team meetings on Monday and Thursday, the team continued to prep the robot for the upcoming Beantown Blitz competition, to be held at Revere High School on June 24 and to work on team planning for the fall.