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.
Category Archives: Accomplishments
The LigerBots Wind Up a Very Successful Year and Seek Sponsors
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
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
In this year’s New England Math League competitions, Newton middle-school students from several schools did well:
- In 6th Grade, Solomon Schechter Day School ranked 6th among 40 schools, and Zev K from there ranked among the top students in the league, along with these students from the Newton Chinese Language School: Grace Z (ranked 1st), Jason H, Edward L, Julia L, Sun M, Ryan L, and Freddie T.
- In 7th Grade, Kyle C, Ella L, and Claire C from the Newton Chinese Language School ranked among the top students in the league.
- In 8th Grade, Oak Hill Middle School tied for 1st place among 41 schools, and the following ranked among the top students in the league: Noah K and Jared M (tied for 1st) along with Vedant K and Roaa B from Oak Hill MS; and Clayton S, William X, and Ray C from the Newton Chinese Language School.
In related news, the Oak Hill MS MathCounts team finished 5th overall and tied for 5th in the Team Round in the Acton-Boxborough Math Competition last month, tackling these problems.
LigerBots Qualify for the New England District Championships!
Congratulations to Newton’s dual-high-school robotics team, the LigerBots! The team competed well in its two regional qualifiers, securing a spot in the upcoming New England District Championships to be held in Springfield, April 13-16.
Last week, at the Greater Boston Qualifier held at Revere High School, the LigerBots received the Engineering Inspiration Award, recognizing the team’s excellence in rookie training and community outreach events. Previously, the team had won FRC’s Gracious Professionalism Award. In both Regional Qualifiers, the team made it to playoffs but lost in the semi-finals — but nevertheless accumulated enough points overall to secure a spot at District Championships. More photos here.
The Ligerbots team does so much for STEM in Newton through its many community outreach programs — mentoring FIRST LEGO League teams, hosting FLL competitions, and participating enthusiastically in a wide variety of local STEM events. The Newton community now has a wonderful opportunity to return the favor: This team needs to raise funds to support its multi-day trip to Springfield for the District Championships. You can help the Ligerbots continue to succeed by donating here! Thank you!
7th Annual Bowen Science Day: 2nd Time Online, Once Again a Big Success
Today the Bowen Elementary School PTO held its 7th annual Science Day, an event that usually takes over the school gym but for the second year was held — very successfully — on Zoom. About 100 students presented the results of their science projects, undertook engineering challenges, and conducted experiments together online in six half-hour sessions. The students’ projects are available to the Bowen community on Flipgrid for the next week.
Bowen parent Diane Gomez was part of the founding committee that created Science Day seven years ago and has recruited and developed a terrific team to carry on as her daughter moves on to middle school next year. Along with Diane, Betty Wang, David Walend, Elizabeth Stover, Janna Greene, Lena Smolensky, Michelle Manne, and Young Lim organized the event — and thanks to Melanie Hildebrandt and Larissa Gordon for facilitating today. The team has curated a helpful list of online resources. Also contributing to today’s success were:
- LigerBots team members, who served as moderators,
- Visiting scientists from the Journal of Emerging Investigators, who attended and reviewed the students’ presentations,
- Members of the Newton North HS STEMentors club, formed to inspire elementary students in STEM, who led sessions with science games, experiments, and hands-on engineering projects, and
- Principal Guzzi, who viewed each student’s FlipGrid presentation before the event and spoke in a brief keynote highlighting the students’ curiosity, engagement, and sharing
The organizers encourage other Newton PTOs to host Science Days, and their advice: “Start small, keep the rules loose, and don’t formally judge it. Encourage kids to be excited and curious about science and feel empowered to share that curiosity with their community. We are so proud of every single one of these students. It takes so much courage to share your work!” For more information or advice, contact scienceday@bowenpto.org.
Oak Hill MS MathCounts Team Places 6th in Statewide Competition
On March 5, the Oak Hill MS MathCounts team achieved a best-ever 6th place among 23 teams in the MathCounts State competition at Wentworth Institute of Technology. MathCounts is a mathematics competition for middle-school students with chapter, state, and national events. More than 120 middle-school students across Massachusetts participated in the State competition, having qualified in one of seven Chapter competitions held in February. The Oak Hill team advanced to States after finishing 3rd in MetroNorth Chapter.
Congratulations to team members Jared Mi, Noah Kim, Vedant Kulkarni, and Sophia Yan, who attended weekly practice sessions with other students as well as additional sessions in preparation for the difficult collaborative team round. Their consistent efforts and collaboration were evident in their resulting achievement. In addition, Jared Mi also placed 12th in the written competition and participated in the prestigious Countdown round. All the students on the team are in Grade 8 and will start at Newton South HS in the fall.
Newton South HS students Elena Baskakova, Aaron Lu, and Steven Hu — all alumni of the Oak Hill MathCounts team — coached the Oak Hill team and attended the event, running a warm-up practice before the competition and providing guidance and support between the competition rounds. The Oak Hill team was the only team in this competition coached entirely by high school students. The 2022 State competition was the first in-person competition since the 2020 event, in which Elena, Aaron, and Steven participated.
LigerBots Reach Semi-Finals at FRC Northeast District Competition
Newton’s city-wide high school robotics team, the LigerBots, debuted their 2022 robot, Prometheus, at the FIRST Robotics Competition New England District North Shore Event at Reading Memorial HS this weekend. The team was thrilled to place 3rd out of 40 teams in the Qualifying rounds and become captain of the Second Alliance team, which reached the semi-finals in the Playoffs. The LigerBots will compete again next weekend at the New England District Greater Boston Event, March 25-27. While in person attendance is restricted, observers can follow along here: NE District Greater Boston Event (2022) – The Blue Alliance.
NSHS Sophomore Qualifies for USA Junior Math Olympiad
Newton South HS sophomore Elena Baskakova has qualified for the USA Junior Mathematical Olympiad (USAJMO) — a 9-hour essay/proof examination offered to the top 250 students in the AMC10 competitions run by the Mathematical Association of America. Elena placed in the Honor Roll of Distinction (top 1%) in AMC10 and scored well in the invitation-only second round, the American Invitational Mathematics Examination (AIME), earlier this year. She is a member of the NSHS Math Team and a participant in MIT PRIMES Circle studying Probability Theory. She competes with Western Mass ARML teams in high school tournaments. Her ARML Stars team placed 11th in the Girls in Math at Yale competition and placed in the top 30 in HMMT February.
Oak Hill MathCounts Team Advances to State Competition
The Oak Hill Middle School MathCounts team won third place at the MathCounts MetroNorth Chapter competition, held online last month, qualifying the team for the in-person state-level competition this weekend. In the MetroNorth competition, twelve OHMS students participated, and four members of the team placed in the top quarter in the individual rounds. These four represented the school in the collaborative team round, solving 9 of the 10 problems and advancing to the state competition. MathCounts is a mathematics competition for middle-school students with chapter, state, and national events. The Oak Hill team is coached by Newton South HS students many of whom are MathCounts alumni. The coaches hope to start a MathCounts team at Brown MS next year.