It’s been a busy and successful year for Newton’s Day Dragons FIRST Lego League (FLL) team, consisting of four students from Day Middle School and two from Pierce Elementary.  The team won a spot in last week’s FLL World Championships in Detroit.  To prepare for the event, the team completely redesigned, rebuilt, and reprogrammed its robot after the state competition — and had its work reviewed by the LigerBots — and was thus able to achieve significantly higher scores and greater consistency in the World competitions. At the event, the Day Dragons were honored to share their experiences in agile development as part of an Agile FIRST expert panel.  With the help of the law firm of Mintz Levin, the team applied for a provisional patent for its innovations. In addition to community work (e.g., demonstrating its robot at the Lincoln Eliot science fair), the team also visited a Harvard University robotics lab. In the upcoming off-season, the team is preparing for next year and plans to work with the LigerBots in promoting FIRST, STEM, and robotics in the Newton community.