Are you a Newton public high school student who is interested in entrepreneurship, leadership, or robotics? The LigerBots are a joint Newton North/Newton South FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) team. The team offers training and hands-on experience in a wide variety of technical, business, and other fields including manufacturing, electrical engineering, programming, marketing, graphics, and more! If you’re interested, find them at Newton North’s Film Lecture Hall on Monday the 13th at 6:30 pm to learn about the team and talk to its members. Visit their join page (https://ligerbots.org/join) to register! Students must attend Newton North or Newton South to join the team.

The LigerBots have been keeping busy during the 2021 off-season! The team is working on a number of projects, and we have participated in multiple events in the past few weeks.

On July 27th, two LigerBots representatives toured the facilities of a local robotics company called Barrett Technology with their CEO, Bill Townsend. The company creates advanced robotic instruments like BURT, a machine which aids patients who are recovering from brain damage.

On August 1st, the LigerBots participated in an off-season competition called BattleCry at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute. The team worked really hard to get our robot competition ready, and we were extremely happy with how it performed. Our alliance placed third out of six alliances, while our team placed eighth out of twenty-four individual teams.

During the summer, the LigerBots have been assembling and beta testing a differential swerve drive—a new type of drivetrain that can strafe left and right and move forward extremely quickly. It combines the maneuverability of a normal swerve drive with enhanced acceleration and increased torque.

Another project the team has been working on is redesigning our website. The graphics group has been hard at work reorganizing the website’s many pages, along with creating new pages and designs. The team can’t wait to see how the new website will look.

We’re all looking forward to the beginning of the preseason in September, and we can’t wait to see what the year will bring!

As we leap into the new season, we’ve been busy as ever. With submissions already passed in, project groups have started their interviews and we’ve got exciting new events coming up! 

The team working on Infinite Challenge at Home are preparing hard for their interview. As usual, they have had regular in-person meetings in the school to modify the robot and take videos of their submissions. With the slideshow and speech made, they are now working on putting on the finishing touches. 

The Game Design Challenge Team have devised a train-based game, called Locomotive Linkage and complete with manual and field elements, for submission. The graphics team aided in the creation of visuals for field elements and the logo. Their interview will happen today–good luck to them! 

Over at the Innovation Challenge, the team has decided to build a watch to facilitate better communication between deaf players and referees. While continuing to develop two versions of the hardware, they completed their initial interview on March 27 and are now getting a head start on semi-final work, due April 21st. 

The Chairman’s team successfully completed their interview as well, talking about our outreach work during the pandemic. We are eagerly anticipating the results. 

Meanwhile, our spring session of the Awesome Mentorship Program (AMP) is in full swing, and we hope to keep this program flourishing. The marketing team also has an exciting event that is ready to get in motion: a Scratch hackathon (a coding competition to code the best project in a day) for children grade 4-8 on April 3rd from 1-5 pm. It’s looking to be a fun time for everyone involved! 

A new season brings with it a fresh new wave of energy and optimism, and we hope to continue carrying this wave with us as we work to complete all our projects. We’re looking forward to what comes next!

It’s the midst of another intense competition season! Over the past month, the LigerBots have been hard at work, discussing ideas, finishing up submissions, and practicing for interviews!

The team working on Infinite Challenge at Home have had regular in-person meetings in the school to modify and upgrade the robot, as well taken videos of their challenge submissions. They have also made a slideshow for a presentation of the process of making the robot, from prototyping to the various elements of the robot. As interviews for all groups will be held in March, they have been preparing well for their speech.

The Game Design Challenge Team, tasked with designing a new FIRST game, have devised a train-based game, called Locomotive Linkage and complete with manual and field elements, for submission. The graphics team aided in the creation of visuals for field elements and the logo. Currently, they are rehearsing their script and finalizing their presentation. 

Over at the Innovation Challenge, where teams come up with a solution to encourage individuals to obtain more physical activity, the team has decided to build hardware to facilitate better communication between deaf players and referees. Two versions of the prototype are in development. The team has submitted the executive summary and is editing their business pitch and technical presentation. 

The Chairman’s team, working on the most prestigious award that FIRST can give, has submitted both the executive summary and the essay, and is drafting a presentation based around our outreach during the pandemic. 

Meanwhile, we kicked off a new session of our mentorship program, AMP Spring 2021.  The marketing team has made progress on planning a Scratch hackathon (a coding competition to code the best project in a day) for children grade 4-8. 

As always, there is so much going on within our team, and we can’t wait to show you what’s next. Stay tuned for more! 

            Do you have students who are creative and like problem-solving? Programming is a great way to combine storytelling and problem solving, especially when using Scratch. 

           The LigerBots, Newton’s award-winning FIRST robotics team, will be hosting a Scratch hackathon for students grades 4-8 on April 3, 2021, from 1 pm-5 pm. Programmers of all levels can compete in teams of 2-4 to code the best animation in Scratch. There will be workshops in the first half of the event and prizes for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place. 

           Please register here if you would like to participate and send this message along to anyone who may be interested. Contact us at [email protected] or [email protected] with any questions.