Category Archives: Accomplishments

Ligerbots compete in Rhode Island District FIRST Robotics Competition

March 12, 2023Accomplishmentsnewtonstem

After six intensive weeks of designing and building its new robot, Atlas, Newton’s dual-high-school robotics team, the LigerBots, competed well at the Rhode Island District Competition this weekend. Through mistakes and victories, the LigerBots team was the first pick for the third-place alliance captain and won the event’s Sustainability Award, which places the team 33rd out of 227 teams across the district. Other well deserved accolades earned at the event:

Newton South HS junior Kevin Yang, the Ligerbots’ co-Chief Technical Officer, was named a District Championship Dean’s List Semi-Finalist for his impeccable leadership.
Greer Swiston, an eight-year adult mentor for the Ligerbots, was nominated as a finalist for the prestigious Woodie Flowers Award, in recognition of her long-time dedication to the team.

Go LigerBots!

Newton MATHCOUNTS teams place 5th and 7th at Chapter Competition

February 12, 2023Accomplishmentsnewtonstem

Eighteen schools and approximately 140 students participated in the MATHCOUNTS Massachusetts MetroNorth Chapter competition that took place at Andrews Middle School in Medford on Saturday, February 4.

Newton’s Charles E. Brown Middle School MATHCOUNTS team — team Pi-Thon, consisting of students Zach Gao, Jason Huang, Stephen Wang, and April Mei — placed fifth, allowing the team to advance to the State Competition to be held at UMass-Lowell on March 4. Schools placing ahead of Brown were Clarke and Diamond in Lexington, Buckingham Browne & Nichols, and McCall in Winchester.

Newton’s Oak Hill Middle School placed seventh. Besides these teams, Newton students from F. A. Day Middle School and Newton Country Day School also participated individually in the competition.

MATHCOUNTS is a national mathematics competition that has served millions of middle school students since 1984. It is divided into a series of contests at the school, chapter, state, and national level. Last year 55,500 students participated in the competition.

Last November at Newton South HS, the Brown team also won the team championship and some individual championships in M Snake –Newton’s first math competition for city-wide middle school students. M Snake is a local math competition for all Newton middle school students, founded by Newton South HS junior Elena Boskakova and run by NSHS students.

Newton High Schools compete in Harvard Invitational Science Olympiad

February 12, 2023Accomplishmentsnewtonstem

Among the 41 high-school teams competing this year’s Harvard Invitational (Division C) Science Olympiad, Newton South HS placed 8th and Newton North HS placed 16th.

In the results for specific events, Newton South placed 2nd in “Fermi Questions” and 4th in “It’s About Time,” and Newton North HS placed 3rd in both “Chemistry Lab” and “Environmental Chemistry.”

NSHS students hold MathCounts Competition for Oak Hill

January 15, 2023Accomplishments, Eventsnewtonstem

On Tuesday, January 10, a group of Newton South HS students organized the School MathCounts Competition at Oak Hill Middle School. This annual competition introduces middle-school students to mathematics competitions in a friendly and low-key way. The competition was well attended, with lots of enthusiasm among participants and organizers.

The NSHS students ran the competition were all alumni of both MathCounts and Oak Hill. They did live grading and presented certificates and small prizes to the top scorers: Ryder, Jason, Christian, Joshua, Hailey, Natalie, Claire, Jayden, Kenneth, Adi, Kinaan, and Deesha.

Many of these high-school students — Elena, Steven, Isaac, Alexander, Jared, Noah and Dhruv –have been giving back to their community by teaching extracurricular math at Oak Hill since their freshman year.

This year the Chapter MathCounts competitions are held in-person for the first time since 2020. On February 4, twelve members of the Oak Hill Mathcounts Club will participate in the MetroNorth chapter competition. Last year, the Oak Hill team placed third in the MetroNorth competition and sixth in the statewide MathCounts competition.

A very successful M Snake — friendly math competition for Grades 6-8

November 27, 2022Accomplishments, Eventsnewtonstem

On Saturday, November 12, 80 students — from Oak Hill, Brown, F.A. Day, Bigelow, Bowen, Zervas, Memorial-Spaulding, and some private schools — gathered at Newton South HS for M Snake, a new, friendly mathematics competition created and run by NSHS students. For most participants, this was their first experience with math competitions, and there was a lot of excitement.

The event included lunch and prizes and was free for all participants, thanks to the generous sponsorship of The Village Bank, the Daily Challenge with Po-Shen Loh, the AoPS Academy Lexington, and Wolfram.

The morning was focused on two individual rounds: 30 questions in 60 minutes, then 7 harder questions in 30 minutes. After lunch, the highlight of the competition consisted of students in teams of four collaborating to answer questions in sets of three against the clock. Many teams were assigned randomly with students from different schools.

NSHS students were entirely responsible for organizing and running the event, including live grading, engaging with competitors and their parents, hosting the guest speaker, and awarding prizes. For three months beforehand, their preparation work involved writing problems, designing the competition website, doing community outreach, finding sponsors, communicating with parents, and much more.

The event went very smoothly, with a lot of positive feedback from parents. Prof. Po-Shen Loh, the coach of Team USA for the international Math Olympiad, attended the event and gave a talk for students and their parents about the use of math in real life. He also spoke highly of the event and praised its organizers. From the positive reactions of students and parents, it’s clear that there’s an appetite for an annual event like this in Newton.

The event ended with a statement from the founder of M Snake, NSHS junior Elena Baskakova, and the awards ceremony. Top scorers in the individual rounds were Stephen (Brown), Joshua (Oak Hill), Ryder (Oak Hill), Jason (Brown), Pia (F.A. Day) and Ranbeer (F.A. Day). In the collaborative team sprint round, the top teams were Brown Pi-thon, Math Maestros, and Mathketeers.

LigerBots host another successful FLL Qualifier competition and STEAM Expo

November 20, 2022Accomplishments, Eventsnewtonstem

The sound of the MC announcing the matches over the background music, a sea of colorful custom T-Shirts, and LEGOs scattered throughout the school: This was the scene of the FIRST LEGO League (FLL) Newton Qualifier last Saturday at Newton North High School. The FLL Qualifier, run by Newton’s dual-high-school robotics team, the LigerBots, was back almost in full swing after the pandemic broke the momentum a couple years ago. During this event, LigerBots members from Newton North High School and Newton South High School shared their passion for robotics with elementary and middle school aged students from eighteen teams throughout the state.

Running alongside the Newton FLL Qualifier, the annual LigerBots STEAM Expo was a success for the over one hundred kids attending! The many exhibitors included the Massachusetts National Guard, Green Newton, and Johnson String as well as these high school clubs and teams: NNHS Programming Club, NNHS STEMentors, NSHS Science Team, and NSHS Women in STEM. In addition, the LigerBots hosted eight STEM activities and demonstrations resulting in the making of approximately 100 Binary Bracelets, 100 Balloon Cars, 100 origami double pyramids and tangrams, 50 cups of slime, and 20 Solar ovens — and the awarding of over 100 buttons.

The event ended with an Awards ceremony and a Dance party! Awards in several categories were given out, with the top ones going to the Goofy Gyros (Champion’s Award Winner) from Ashland, Mechanical Madness (Champion’s Award Runner-up) from North Attleboro, Team Arrow from Canton, the Green Gearticks from Lincoln, and the Exploding Bananas from Lexington. We had five teams from Newton, and of these, The Cookie Coders won 2nd place in the Core Values judging and Team Voltage won the Rising All-Star award.

— LigerBots Davis (NNHS Junior) and Charlotte (NSHS Sophomore)

MassBay Virtual STEM Expo, May 9-13

May 8, 2022Accomplishments, Events, Virtual/Onlinenewtonstem

MassBay Community College in Wellesley will host its twice-yearly Student STEM Expo showcasing students’ work, again online this year. You attend at any time to view video presentations and comment on projects in the online forums. There are also opportunities to talk in real-time with students and faculty. The expo also highlights MassBay’s STEM Starter Academy, which aims to engage and support more students in STEM fields.

The LigerBots Wind Up a Very Successful Year and Seek Sponsors

May 1, 2022Accomplishments, Opportunitiesnewtonstem

Newton’s dual-high-school robotics team, the LigerBots, is finishing a year of success both in competitions and in community service. In FIRST Robotics Competition events:

In the North Shore Competition in Reading, the LigerBots captained the second-seeded alliance and made it all the way to the semi-finals. The team also received FIRST’s coveted Gracious Professionalism Award.
At the Greater Boston Competition in Revere, as part of the fourth-seeded alliance, the LigerBots again made it to the semi-finals, qualifying for the New England District Championship (DCMP). The team also won the Engineering Inspiration Award at this event.
At DCMP, the LigerBots captained the eighth-seeded alliance and made it to the quarter finals, finishing 28th out of 160 teams in all of New England.

And in service to the Newton community:

The LigerBots continue to provide assistance and mentorship to FIRST LEGO League teams for elementary- and middle-school students in Newton.
Since the Covid pandemic began, the LigerBots have continued to offer the aptly named Awesome Mentorship Project to provide high-school mentors for elementary students both in the summer and during the school year.
On April 24, the LigerBots participated in the Earth Day celebration at Newton City Hall, showing off Prometheus, the LigerBots’ newly built competition robot – to educate, entertain, and inspire the community. LigerBots also showed kids how to make bracelets with their initials in binary code.
On May 1, the LigerBots participated in the Newton Bike Rodeo, a bicycle safety event hosted by Bike Newton for children in Grades K-6 to promote safe bike riding habits and cycling to school. The team created an obstacle course that participants used to practice their bike safety skills.

The LigerBots rely in part on donations and financial sponsorships to support its competitions, educational offerings, and community outreach. You can make make a donation here, and to learn about becoming a sponsor (corporate or otherwise), email sponsor-relations@ligerbots.org. The LigerBots are “massively grateful” to all of their sponsors!

NSHS Sophomore Excels in Junior Math Olympiad

May 1, 2022Accomplishmentsnewtonstem

Representing Newton’s Russian School of Math, NSHS sophomore Elena Baskakova is one of the 67 nationwide winners of the United States Junior Math Olympiad (USAJMO), the top invitational competition hosted by the Mathematical Association of America (MAA) for students scoring high in the MAA’s American Invitational Mathematics Exam (AIME). With this achievement, Elena has qualified for the MAA’s 2022 Math Olympiad Program at Carnegie Mellon University this summer. Elena is also one of five students in the Northeast to receive a Two Sigma AMC 10B Certificate of Excellence in the AMC Young Women in Mathematics Award & Certificate Program.

Newton MS Students Score Well in N. E. Math League