Yesterday the LigerBots, Newton’s high-school FIRST Robotics team, hosted the Newton Qualifier, a FIRST LEGO League (“FLL”) competition, in which 31 teams of students in Grades 4-8 from 14 communities across the state were challenged to think like real-life scientists and engineers. Six teams participated from Newton: The Snowy Owls, Tacocats, Roaming Rover, Kattattak, Day Dragons, and Atomic-Bots.  Congratulations to the Day Dragons for being one of nine teams to advance to the Eastern Massachusetts State Tournament!  (That tournament, with 48 qualifying teams, will also be hosted by the LigerBots, on December 17 at Newton North HS.)

For yesterday’s event, each team defined and solved a real-world problem around this year’s theme, Animal Allies. At the event, the teams presented their research and competed to solve a set of robot game missions using autonomous robots they had built, tested, and programmed.

Yesterday’s event also included an exciting Maker Fair of demonstrations and hands-on activities, including 3D Printing & Artbotics by the LigerBots, Einstein’s Workshop, iRobot, Microsoft, Newton North Greengineering, Russian School of Math, Made@MassChallenge, Kevin Osborn (Maker),  Newton Free Library, Woobo, Empow Studios and Destination Imagination.

Many thanks to all teams, judges, and exhibitors — and congratulations to the LigerBots for their community contribution of careful planning, promotion, and execution of yet another successful event. #MoreThanRobots