On December 16th, The LigerBots hosted the FIRST Lego League (FLL) Eastern Massachusetts State Championships, a competition using Lego robots built by students from grade 4-8 passionate about robotics, at Newton North High School. Alongside the championship, the LigerBots also hosted a public STEAM Expo that brought together 48 teams and around 1000 people attended, the event also included the STEAM Expo where many STEAM activities were conducted to educate and immerse children in STEAM.

The FLL Championship was a competition as well as a public event, inviting politicians such as Congressman Jake Auchincloss. Many children along with their parents as well as the FLL teams were able to enjoy both the FLL competition and STEAM Expo.

“The kids loved the expo, especially the slime.” said Timothy, student manager of the STEAM Expo.

Many first years on the team experienced teaching younger kids in the form of running STEAM activities all throughout the event.

“It was really exciting to see the look on the children’s faces when they begin to see the correlation between the activity and STEAM.” said Andrew, first year member on LigerBots.

In the competition gym, there was an exciting atmosphere as the teams focused on their matches. There was a lot of gracious professionalism and coordination shown.

“While I was MCing I was noticing how coordinated all the teams were and the gracious professionalism and communication the kids had with each other. I believe all awards given were definitely deserved.” said Davis, former CMO of LigerBots.

We congratulate the Goofy Gyros especially as they move on to the World FLL Championships after they won both the FLL qualifier and championship we hosted.

LigerBots congratulates all the teams who made it to nationals and a big thank you to all the teams who attended!

The LigerBots will host a STEAM activity expo for children and robot zoo on Dec. 16 from 10-3 at Newton North High School, accompanying the Massachusetts East FIRST LEGO League Championship, which runs from 9-4. The entire event is free and open to the public.

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.”