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

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 North Shore Competition. We won the most prestigious award from FIRST, the 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 our robot was in the winning alliance in 8 of them 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 practicing their speech

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!

 

This is where it all starts! A rite of passage for many LigerBots members is first attending a STEAM fair as an elementary schooler. The Burr STEAM Fair is one of these such events. Attendees made bracelets and skeleton hands, and also engaged with the robot!

 

The LigerBots were victorious in the Week Zero competition with more than 25 members attending the joyous event. Read more to see what students thought, with a special feature from Coach Igor. 🎉

The LigerBots team celebrating their win at Week Zero!

How do the Ligers think we did? 🤔

Student Hannah states that the competition was a 85/100 and “it went surprisingly better than expected”. She says if they were to improve one thing it would be for the robot to not break.

 Student Liam states that the competition was an 80/100 and it went “solid”. He says if they were to improve one thing it would be to have more access to bolt holes since the hopper plates were in the way. 

Student Morgan states that the competition was 85/100 and it was “surprising”. Going into the competition Morgan had low hopes. But as the competition progresses her spirits elevated. She says if they were to improve one thing it would be not to break the intake. 

Coach Igor states that the competition was a 75/100 and “it was fun. It’s week zero!”. He says if they were to improve one thing it would be to improve the mechanical issues in the climber, intake and a couple small tidbits of tweaks. Most mechanical issues have already been resolved shortly after Week Zero. He also notes that the team did a great job in this competition!

Coaches working with a student reviewing for the match.

We had some great stats at Week Zero. The LigerBots final rank was 6th, way to go! Our average ranking score was 111.50. Our alliance partners were Team 6328, Mechanical Advantage from Littleton, and Team 2342, Team Phoenix. Our Record was 7-3-0. Our spirits were: High!

Hermes in action on the field!

The Fun Part: 🥳

Poem: 📔✍️📚

The week does not exist,

Yet we are all watching.

As the score ticks up,

Yellow balls fly past,

Human Players bringing their aim,

Drivers steering the bot towards victory.

Collet and shoot,

Oh what a hoot.

Top alliance,

Climbing high,

Don’t forget to touch the sky.
Ligerbots,

Here or there,

Ligerbots will always care. 

Reminder to Ligers: Do your homework! #stayinschool