The LigerBots FIRST® 2017 Safety Animation Award submission is ready!

These 40 second animated videos are created by students from many FIRST® Robotics Competition (FRC) teams each year for the FIRST® Safety Animation Award. They combine an educational message about safety with fun art and animation. The winning ones, deemed by the judges at FIRST® to be the best, get to be shown on a big screen at the beginning of FRC competitions! A couple of LigerBots spent dozens of hours using 3D computer animation software to create our video, which has a steampunk theme. We hope that our submission will be chosen by FIRST® and that it will have a lasting impact the community.

This is the LigerBots’ 3rd year submitting a video for the award. Our biggest challenge this year was a new animation technique. Our student animators from previous years used stop motion, a technique where many images are taken of physical models, such as playdough, or paper cutouts. This year we used 3D animation computer software which proved to be a vastly different process. Computer generated imagery need to be rendered, or drawn out by the computer. Render time was a challenge because of the award submission deadline. And this can take many many hours of valuable time! Despite these challenges, our animation team finished before the deadline and we are all very proud of our unique end result.

The LigerBots will host the FLL Eastern Massachusetts State Championship tournament on Sat. December 17 at Newton North High School, from 9-3. Forty-eight FLL teams are expected, and the public is invited to view the event.

Last Saturday the LigerBots hosted the Newton Qualifier, a FIRST LEGO League (“FLL”) competition, in which 31 teams of students in Grades 4-8 from 14 communities across the state were challenged to think like real-life scientists and engineers. Six teams participated from Newton: The Snowy Owls, Tacocats, Roaming Rover, Kattattak, Day Dragons, and Atomic-Bots. Congratulations to the Day Dragons for being one of nine teams to advance to the Eastern Massachusetts State Tournament! (That tournament, with 48 qualifying teams, will also be hosted by the LigerBots, on December 17 at Newton North HS.)

For this event, each team defined and solved a real-world problem around this year’s theme, Animal Allies. At the event, the teams presented their research and competed to solve a set of robot game missions using autonomous robots they had built, tested, and programmed.

The event also included an exciting Maker Fair of demonstrations and hands-on activities, including 3D Printing & Artbotics by the LigerBots, Einstein’s Workshop, iRobot, Microsoft, Newton North Greengineering, Russian School of Math, Made@MassChallenge, Kevin Osborn (Maker),  Newton Free Library, Woobo, Empow Studios and Destination Imagination.

Many thanks to all teams, judges, and exhibitors — and congratulations to the LigerBots for their community contribution of careful planning, promotion, and execution of yet another successful event. #MoreThanRobots

In just a few weeks, the halls of Newton North High School will be filled with hundreds of FIRST Lego Leaguers, taking part in the Newton Qualifier, a competition hosted by the LigerBots on November 19. From 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 pm more than 30 FLL Teams will compete for the chance to continue to the State Championship. This year, there are two championships, and we have the distinct pleasure of hosting a massive one, for 48 teams, on December 17.

At the November event we are also hosting a mini maker fair where participants will bring something to show or something to do. (iRobot is coming again and we hope that a PacBot will be coming with them. The Newton North Greengineering Club last year offered the chance to power a radio with a bike, and Einstein’s Workshop did a small LED activity).

FIRST® LEGO® League (FLL) immerses teams of up to 10 students, ages 9-14 (grades 4-8), in real-world scientific and technological problems. Teams research and design solutions to a scientific question or problem and build autonomous LEGO® robots that compete in performing assigned missions. The theme for 2016 is ANIMAL ALLIES(SM) focusing on the interrelationships between humans and animals. Experience in FIRST® LEGO® League prepares students well for high-school-level robotics with the LigerBots.

The public is invited to view the competition and participate in the mini maker fair. We hope you will come to Newton North on November 19 and check out both.

The LigerBots will host the Newton Qualifier, a regional FLL (FIRST® LEGO® League) competition for grades 4-8, on Sat. Nov. 19, 9:00-3:00, at Newton North High School. There will be a maker fair accompanying the competition, with demos and hands-on activities. Both the competition and the maker fair are open to the public.