Last Saturday, November 18 at Newton North High School, the LigerBots hosted the FIRST LEGO League (FLL) Newton Qualifier, a competition using LEGO robots built by elementary and middle schoolers passionate about robotics. The LigerBots have hosted FLL tournaments since 2008, and the team was excited to continue hosting in 2023. LEGOs and robots in every corner of the building, booming voices of the MC announcing matches, 14 FLL teams, and 70 LigerBot students working hard to run this show certainly made Newton North very lively last Saturday. FLL team projects on this year’s FIRST theme of the arts filled the cafeteria.

The LigerBots set up a booth on Newton North’s Main Street corridor, showcasing their 2022 competition robot, and two hands-on STEAM activities: making custom buttons and origami pieces. The kids enjoyed interacting with the robot, a machine that could shoot giant tennis balls for them to catch, and overall it was a great way to entertain the attendees with STEAM demonstrations.

The qualifier concluded with an awards ceremony and a fun dance party. All four teams from Newton received an award: Cookie Coders (Innovation Project first place), Voltage (Innovation Project second place), New England Code Crackers (Core Values first place) and The First Layer (Judges Award). 

Of the 14 FLL teams that attended, six teams advanced to the state finals: 52042 Goofy Gyros, 52438 Mechanical Madness, 55783 Cookie Coders, 56378 New England Code Crackers, 57499 Acton Avengers, and 60562 The Mind Coders. Two of these teams are from Newton, the Cookie Coders and New England Code Crackers. These teams will compete at the upcoming Massachusetts FLL Championship which will be divided between competitions at WPI and at Newton North.

If you thought last weekend was fun, come visit us on December 16th from 9am-4pm, for the MA FLL Championship at Newton North High School, also run by the LigerBots. Come watch the 48 FLL teams compete head-to-head and check out our STEAM Expo, run alongside the competition. At the STEAM Expo, from 10am-3pm, kids and attendees have the opportunity to engage in a large variety of hands-on STEAM activities, explore a number of local organizations’ booths, and interact with bigger robots from FIRST Robotics Competition and FIRST Tech Challenge. This event is free and open to the public! 

On November 12, the LigerBots hosted its first FIRST Lego League (FLL) scrimmage at WPS institute in preparation for the FLL Newton Qualifier on Saturday November 19. With the help of Carrie Wihbey from WPS Institute, the LigerBots and the FLL teams who attended had a great first FLL scrimmage at WPS.

It provided practice to both the participants of FLL and our team members, and many members have expressed being impressed with the robots the FLL teams had built.

Student Co-Chief Marketing Officer Tristan Leung said, “I thought a lot of the designs were genius like how there were lots of setups so like they would have frames they would put their robots into so it would line up perfectly.

Around 8 FLL teams attended and all of them seemed very excited to be there and as the scrimmage continued, there was visible improvement and the start of strategy and teamwork being applied within the participants.

“I noticed that the FLL teams worked together well and demonstrated communication skills,” said team member Sarah Hemment.

The scrimmage included mock games, there were a few rounds of the game and the teams would rotate participating in the game while other teams would be sent to judging rooms.

“A coach and I were both judging a team called the Gummy Bears.” According to team member Wes Halliwell, “Their innovation project was very well done and showed a lot of effort.” 

On November 8, the LigerBots attended the Rockwell Automation Conference, an annual conference that we were invited to as an FRC team. This year the event was held at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center.

The Rockwell Automation Conference is a three day long trade conference, where we were given the opportunity to interact with industry professionals. The LigerBots attended Rockwell as a representative for FIRST, spreading awareness of FIRST to the community.

“Rockwell is one of our biggest sponsors so I was super excited to be there and we got to talk to other FIRST teams and talk to professionals in various fields,” said Co-COO Charlotte Storey.

We brought our 2023 robot and we did mock games of Charged Up, last year’s FRC game as a way to demonstrate what type of activities we do as a high school robotics team, a perfect opportunity to meet and talk to many new potential sponsors. There were many local and nationwide companies in attendance at Rockwell, as well as many professionals within STEM industries which the LigerBots got to interact with. We also got a chance to tour the conference and see products and ideas of all the different companies such as an electromagnetic table with floating plates.

“I thought that there were a couple of biotech/regenerative organ companies that worked on really interesting things.” said Co-CTO Julia Hulburd.

Something that one of many of the members enjoyed was the provided food at the venue.

“I remember that we had really good food at the venue and there was good steak, chicken and this really delicious blue cheese dressing” according to team member Franklin Ji, “That day I was so full, I didn’t even eat dinner.”

The LigerBots attended the annual Newton Pumpkin Smash on November 4th at City Hall, bringing our custom built smasher. It is the 3rd year The LigerBots have been invited to this event, and we were so happy to be back. 

30 LigerBots attended the event to help run the smasher and the STEAM activities. Over the course of 4 hours we were able to smash over a hundred pumpkins with our smasher. All pumpkins smashed were composted, ensuring the waste is kept minimal.

As a team, we have been working on this smasher for about 2 months, going through many iterations and different designs. Since the smasher is one of the first projects we do as a team each year, it is a great opportunity for rookies to get some hands-on experience with new tools throughout the shop and a great opportunity to get to know people on the team. Overall, the smasher was such a success and the smiles on the little kids faces and their joyous screams made all the hard work worth it. 

On October 14, LigerBots attended the New England Robotics Derby (N.E.R.D.), an off-season annual Robotics competition at Tewksbury Memorial High School where our alliance placed third in the playoffs. 

This year, N.E.R.D. was co-hosted by FRC teams, #1474 The Titans and #4909 BIONICS. LigerBots placed third in the playoffs teaming up with FRC teams: #6328 Mechanical Advantage, #4909 Bionics. 

Over 30 teams participated in N.E.R.D. and hundreds of spectators from all over New England came to watch the competition.

“With a rookie pit crew and new people on the drive team.” said co-C.O.O. of LigerBots, Charlotte Storey, “I was really happy to see us go from the seventh seed alliance to making it third alliance overall.”

Throughout the event, efforts of getting first year members involved were made as multiple first year members participated in various activities in N.E.R.D., and the majority of the pit crew consisted of first years.

“It was my first time doing something like a pit crew and I learned a lot from the veterans on the team.” according to first-year LigerBots member, Felicia Ji.