On Saturday, September 21, the LigerBots hosted the first ever FRC RoboCon NE at WPS.  With many amazing speakers presenting, the event was a smashing success!

Many students and mentors volunteered to assist during the event and in the days leading up to it.  RoboCon would not have been possible without their help.

During one of the morning presentations, three members of the Gongoliers (FRC 5112) talked about their team’s organizational structure. Attendees learned about their skill badge system, where team members are awarded badges for doing things on the team and their department system where certain branches of the team fall into categories.

Keynote speaker, Robin Saitz, the former Chief Marketing Officer at Rockwell Automation, and a longtime sponsor of the LigerBots, talked about her experience working at a variety of companies such as Raytheon, GTE, PTC, Brainshark, Avecto, Plex, and Rockwell. She is also a founding mentor of our team.

Adrienne Clark, our second keynote speaker, is the Director of Engineering Operations at Re:Build Fikst.  Adrienne talked about learning from failure, in which she gave a presentation about famous failures in the past and what went wrong.  She also suggested ways to improve in the workspace to prevent failure and be successful.

Other presentations included an alumni panel about how FIRST influences lives and careers, a race car building workshop by ALARM Robotics (FRC 2079), a presentation by Carly Buchanan and Dan Lavoie about mechanism design, a speech by Tufts student Hang Yu about learning, and a speech about efficiency by Blake Bourque.  The presentations were all very deep and fascinating with many thoughtful questions asked by attendees.  

We hope to host this event again next year and for many more years to come!   

On September 28, the LigerBots went to the RoboBoston event in the Seaport. Many tech companies were there as well as some of our fellow FIRST robotics teams. We were able to compete with other teams in an arena inside the venue and give out our team buttons.

Before the event started, there was a robot block party where all the participating teams took their robots on a trip around a city block. This tradition has become a hallmark of the event!

A big part of this event was spreading awareness about our team. One way we do this is through giving people our handmade buttons. Throughout the day, we worked very hard to make and distribute about 65 buttons. It was a struggle at times but we were able to keep up with the demand.

This was a very successful event as always, and we look forward to more outreach events in the future!   Stay tuned for RiverRage this weekend, October 26-27 and the Pumpkin Smash on November 2.

On Sunday, September 15, we ran a STEAM expo for neurodivergent children at WPS. The kids were very interested in the activities and it felt good to give back to the members of the community around us. FIRST is not just about robots, it’s about who you impact too.

We offered many outreach activities including slime, binary beads, skeleton handprints, coloring, legos, human robot, and of course the actual robot. Each station offered a unique experience for the kids to learn more about what we do.

At the coloring station, kids colored in templates of the liger, our team mascot.

At the Lego station, kids built freely using lego bricks. In this photo, Gabe and the student are building vehicles from the numerous Lego wheels.

Our robot is the main attraction at every event- we are a robotics team, after all! The 2022 robot shoots inflatable balls which are always a lot of fun for kids to catch.

This event was a success for us and the neurodivergent members of our community. We look forward to seeing you at upcoming outreach events!

This summer, 18 LigerBots took part in an eight week program through Northeastern University’s Enabling Engineering  internship.”During the internship, the students helped to design and build five different projects for patients, children and nurses in the Boston area. From July 8 through August 30, teams of four to six students worked with a budget of $500.00 each and met twice a week at Northeastern. They worked with clients,The Boston Home, New England Pediatric Care and Brigham and Women’s Hospital,and mentors to develop inventions for particular needs.

The first project was a wheelchair radar created for a child who is blind and has cognitive challenges, who hoped to be able to move more independently. The wheelchair emitted sounds each time it approached an object, which helped alert the child of an obstacle in his way.

Another group (which included students from Newton Lazer Robotics) designed a corn-hole shooter for children with Multiple Sclerosis. The result was a switch-operated “cannon” that could be adjusted for distance.

A switch-activated, portable catapult was the design challenge for another group. This device was created for children with severe disabilities who wished to engage in activities such as corn hole, velcro darts, and water balloon launching.

The fourth project was a universal robotic arm intended to help children who do not have the use of their arms and hands to engage in activities like cooking. This arm was created to pour and stir ingredients without the need for assistance.

The final group designed a hands-free sanitary light which allows night nurses to check in on patients in poor lighting conditions.

On the last day of the program, students presented their final projects to each other to mentors, and to family and friends.The leaders of NEU commended them for their imagination, participation and hard work.

The LigerBots, will host an open house for prospective team members on Sept. 30, 2024 from 6:15 – 9:00 p.m. in the tech ed room at Newton South High School. All Newton North and Newton South students are invited. This exciting event will include an introductory presentation about the team and hands-on challenges in many of the skill areas that we learn on our team, like mechanical and electrical engineering, programming, driving robots, CAD (Computer Aided Design), marketing, graphics, photography, and public speaking. Masks are encouraged but not required at LigerBots meetings. Closed-toed shoes are required in the LigerBots shop. For more information, email [email protected] or visit our team website at ligerbots.org.