At FIRST Robotics’ Greater Boston Competition this weekend, the LigerBots, Newton’s dual high school robotics team, showed their star power in the spotlight. This event — the LigerBots’ second New England District Qualifier — was held over two intense days at Revere High School, with 61 qualifying rounds on Saturday and remaining qualifying rounds, playoffs, and award announcements on Sunday.
Category Archives: Accomplishments
LigerBots excel in first qualifying match of the season
From Newton North HS Senior Davis R: This weekend, the LigerBots, Newton’s dual-high-school robotics team, finished strongly at Bridgewater State University for their first New England District Qualifier. After two fierce days of competition and overcoming a series of technical challenges, the team placed as a finalist out of 36 teams. In addition, the LigerBots won the Engineering Inspiration Award.
This is only the beginning. Tomorrow, the LigerBots will be back in the shop, taking lessons from the competition to make strategic improvements. This will prepare them for the next competition, the New England District Greater Boston Event in two weeks on March 23-24.
NOTE: FIRST Robotics says: “The Engineering Inspiration Award celebrates outstanding success in advancing respect and appreciation for engineering within a team’s school or organization, and community. Inspiring others to respect science and technology requires passion, knowledge and commitment, and we recognize these qualities through this award.”
Droids, LEGOs and Robots, Oh My!
On Saturday, December 16, Newton’s dual-high-school robotics team, the LigerBots hosted the Massachusetts East State Championship FIRST LEGO League (FLL) tournament at Newton North High School along with a STEAM Expo featuring exhibitors such as:
- Society of Women engineers, who showed kids how to build an LED light;
- The 501st Legion, who all came in their Star Wars costumes and showed off their droids; and
- Johnson String Instruments, who demonstrated the math behind music.
Day Middle School science teacher Sam Genier wins county Teacher of the Year
Day Middle School 6th grade science teacher Sam Genier has received the Massachusetts Association of Science Teachers 2023 Teacher of the Year award for Middlesex County, for her significant contributions and exemplary teaching or supervision of science education.
MITES Symposiums: High-school students present their work, July 21 & Aug. 2-3
MIT Introduction to Technology, Engineering & Science (MITES) provides transformative experiences to bolster confidence, create lifelong community, and build foundations in STEM for highly motivated students in Grades 7-12 from diverse and underrepresented backgrounds. The MITES students who are rising seniors will be presenting their work in two symposiums. Register here to attend:
- July 21: MITES Summer, in-person, 8:30AM-5PM
- August 2-3: MITES Semester, virtual, 6PM-9PM each day
Newton FIRST LEGO League team — Lazer Robotics — wins Coopertition Award at Morocco Open Invitational
Last week, the Lazer Robotics, an award-winning, Newton-based FIRST LEGO League (FLL) team, completed its multi-year run in FLL by winning of the League’s most prestigious honors – FLL’s Coopertition Award – at the 2023 FLL Open Invitational in Marrakesh, Morocco.
Read the full story at Fig City News.
New England Sci-Tech celebrates 5 years, June 4
The New England Sci-Tech (NEST) STEM education center (16 Tech Circle, off Route 9 in Natick) will celebrate its Five Year Anniversary on June 4, noon-1PM. There will be food, music, and tours of the newly renovated spaces and the new Outdoor Terrace Extension. RSVP here.
NEST’s 2023 Cubes-in-Space Team is shown with their new souvenir T-shirts, with team logo and 2023 Cubes-in-Space logo designed by Abriana (4th from left), who won the national competition for best design. Her design will fly on a NASA rocket in June along with the team’s medical experiment developed in collaboration with the University of Louisville. The team’s results will be published in July and presented at the New England HamXposition in Marlborough, August 25-27.
Newton elementary math team achieves 3rd place at WinMaC
Garden City, a team of elementary school students from Newton placed third in the Winchester Math Competition (WinMaC) on May 14. WinMaC is an annual math competition organized by high-school students for students in Grades 4-5. This year about 80 elementary students participated, competing for individual and team awards. Students Billy Wu, Avi Pathak, Joshua Tang, and Alexandra Baskakova represented Newton as team Garden City.
There were two fast-paced individual rounds, Dash and Theme, in which students worked on problems independently, and two collaborative rounds, Team and Guts, in which students on each team solved problems together.
All members of Newton’s Garden City team placed high individually, with the top scorer on the team finishing in fifth place, and the team also demonstrated good teamwork during the Team and the Guts rounds.
Olin College Spring Expo, May 9
Olin College of Engineering will hold its Spring Expo on May 9, 10AM-Noon, when students will share their favorite projects, research experiences, and other pursuits at tables lining the hallways of the Miller Academic Center, in some classrooms, and outside. Community members and student family members are invited, but the school is not able to accommodate any additional groups of Grades K-12 students this year. No pre-registration is required, but please sign in upon arrival at the Miller Academic Center.
LigerBots finish FRC season strong in West Springfield
Following strong performances at the Rhode Island and Revere District competitions, the Newton LigerBots robotics team qualified for the New England District Championships held in West Springfield this weekend. At the start of the competition, Jeffrey Lam, a Junior at Newton North HS, performed the National Anthem on his electric guitar! Competing alongside alliance partners Mayhem Robotics and Air Strike, the LigerBots placed 25th out of 90 teams in West Springfield, nearly qualifying for the World Championships.
Finishing off the season strong, the team won the FRC Imagery Award, which “celebrates attractiveness in engineering and outstanding visual aesthetic integration of machine and team appearance.”
Kevin Yang, LigerBots co-CTO and a Junior at Newton South HS, was named one of the four Dean’s List Finalists and thus won an invitation to attend the FRC World Championships in Houston, April 19-22. Until their next competition season, in January 2024, the LigerBots will conduct community outreach events and work on off-season projects!