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.

On September 28th, 2023, The LigerBots hosted our annual open house for 46 prospective students, from Newton North and Newton South. The LigerBots open house is one of our most well known events, introducing the myriad of opportunities for new students to experience the different parts of our team. We began with a warm welcome and brief introduction of our team, where we talked about the various aspects of the LigerBots. 

Prospective team members had the opportunity to learn how to solder, make 3D objects, and more! Aligning with our team’s ideology of teaching STEM through hands-on approaches, we had students try out machinery in the shop and familiarize themselves with our shop tools through a tools scavenger hunt.

Students also got to experience driving the 2022 robot and some of our STEM activities for younger kids for our outreach events. Here, students compete in a competition to build the highest LEGO tower.

Members were given the opportunity to try making a graphic for the LigerBots, as well as look for a hidden image in Onshape, the software the LigerBots use for CAD (computer aided design).

We topped off our night with a celebration of cake, to cheer on our future teammates. Coming up soon is our FLL Qualifier on November 18th and FLL Tournament on December 16th.