Today, we hosted a science fair at Lincoln-Elliot elementary. Kids participated in outreach events and had a fun time!

With “We Are the Champions” by Queen filling the arena and teammates cheering from the stands, the LigerBots, leading their alliance, claimed victory at the Greater Boston FIRST Robotics Competition held at Revere High School, topping a field of 37 teams in a dramatic, come-from-behind finish. The NE FIRST 7 week competition season still has 3 weeks to go, but LigerBots has secured their spot at the District Championships (DCMP)!

This weekend, earning the 2nd overall seed after 74 qualifying matches, the LigerBots dominated their way through the bracket, making the playoffs and winning every match in the playoffs until falling to the 1st seed Alliance in the semifinals. Fighting back through the lower bracket, FRC 2877 along with FRC 151, FRC 190 and backup robot FRC 8626 advanced to a best-of-three finals. There, they began by winning a nail-biting first match by just 4 points before dropping the second. In the decisive third match, our Alliance, with team 151 playing critical defense and teams 190 and 2877 pounding points into the hub, upset the 1st seed alliance by 4 points again to take the title!

Beyond the finals, the LigerBots earned three FIRST awards that reflect the team’s broader impact. The Engineering Inspiration Award recognized the team for their commitment to inspiring progress and innovation through engineering. Also, team member Felicia was honored by being named a semifinalist for the FIRST Leadership award, sending her to DCMP to compete with the semi finalists from other qualifiers held around the district. In addition, Coach Chris was nominated for the Woodie Flowers award, which recognizes coaches for their impact on their teams and in FIRST.

This victory builds on momentum from just two weeks earlier, when the LigerBots captured the FIRST Impact Award at the North Shore qualifier in Reading—the organization’s highest honor, celebrating teams that best embody a model for others through outreach and community impact. That win had already secured their qualification for District Championships.

Now, their robot, Hermes, earned its own way onto the field to compete with 70+ of the top teams in New England! There, the LigerBots will showcase not only the performance and strategy of their robot, but also their hallmark values of innovation, teamwork, leadership, and “gracious professionalism.”

Next stop: District Championships in Springfield, MA April 15-18th.

At Newton South, we hosted the neurodivergent steam fair. Students participated in STEAM activities, and had fun engaging with LigerBots members.

LigerBots Advance with the FIRST Impact Award at North Shore Competition

Our team’s robot, “Hermes” scoring

In a competition built on robots, the biggest victory turned out to be human. We traveled to Reading High School, on March 14th and 15th for the Northshore Competition. We won the most prestigious, FIRST Impact award giving us our golden ticket to District Championships!

Hermes and one of our alliance members team 78 (Airstrike)

76 qualifier matches were played over two days of competition. The LigerBots were in 12 of those matches and winning 8 and thus garnering enough ranking points to finish 8th out of the 38 robots competing. This guaranteed us a spot in the playoffs. 

LigerBots’ pit crew working on Hermes

Our scouts watched and wrote down everything to collect data about other teams’ statistics and find us a strong team. Head scout Sebastian S commented, “Scouting is like fantasy sports, a lot of analysis and numbers. Make your perfect team”.  The data gathered was key to our alliance selection. We were captain of alliance 6 and we picked team 78 (Airstrike) and team 5735 (Control Freaks). We got up to the 2nd round of the playoffs and our alliance ranked 5th overall.

Our Impact team getting ready to make their presentation

The main highlight of this event for us was winning the FIRST Impact award which honors the team that best represents a model for other teams to emulate and best embodies the mission of FIRST. Impact team member Felicia J noted that, “We had a great presentation for our first competition and we were very excited to see our hard work in preparing paid off” 

The LigerBots team with the FIRST Impact award!

The FIRST Impact award guarantees us a spot in the District Championships in April so we are incredibly grateful to have been given the award. But before that, we will be competing in the Greater Boston Competition on March 28th and 29th. Stay tuned for more!

Every year, the Newton North math department runs a puzzle day where people could come and solve various puzzles. At this year’s event on March 7th, we attended and ran a booth as well as participating. It was great to be there as we had not attended in 3 years.

A member diligently solving the puzzles

At the event, there was a packet filled with puzzles for people to solve, such as a poem with extra letters and a scrambled website link. We formed a LigerBots team where we worked together and were eventually able to solve 5 of the 7 puzzles.

A student plays catch with the Outreach Robot

We also brought our outreach robot for event attendees to play catch. The younger folks at the event had a fun time playing with their mechanical friend!

The panel giving a speech about computer and data science careers

In addition to puzzles, there was also a panel of professional computer scientists who talked about their careers and the current issues facing the field. The event ended with a gift card raffle giveaway where two LigerBots members won rewards!

Group photo of the LigerBots staff

This was a very fun event and we look forward to many more events this spring. For now, stay tuned for the North Shore Competition on March 14-15 where we will officially begin the 2026 competition season!