Seven Newton-based FIRST LEGO League (FLL) robotics teams competed in the Eastern Massachusetts FLL State Championship, hosted by the Ligerbots at Newton North HS yesterday, and four of them won awards.  The event drew a crowd of over 1,000 FLL team participants, coaches, mentors, volunteers, and spectators.

• The Day Dragons, a team of four 7th graders from F. A. Day Middle School and two 5th graders from Peirce Elementary School, won the top honor for the event — the Champions’ Award, for the best overall performance in each aspect of the competition.  This includes the team’s performance in the robotics competition, the team’s presentation of research results in this year’s area of focus (Hydro Dynamics), and the team’s demonstration of FLL’s Core Values.
• The Botanists were part of the 1st-place alliance for the Lightning Round, in which teams are paired for collaboration in matches that run in half the time.
• The Block Party team earned the second-place Programming award.
• The Snowy Owls won the award for “Most Reliable Robot.”

Other Newton-based FLL teams that earned the right, in earlier qualifying events, to participate in the Eastern Massachusetts Championship were the Hydro-Dragons, the Newtronics, and the Roaming Rovers. Congratulations to all seven teams!

The LigerBots also hosted a maker fair that drew participation from such local groups as Destination Imagination, the New Art Center, Students for Greener World, and others. There was even a taste of Star Wars, with a Stormtrooper and Imperial Droid on hand!