The Newton LigerBots excelled today at the FIRST Robotics Greater Boston Event at Revere High School, where the team advanced to the finals as part of the second alliance before being eliminated in the final match. The LigerBots ranked sixth out of 42 teams in regular competition play and also took home the event’s Engineering Inspiration Award. One of the team’s student leaders also moved forward as a finalist for the Dean’s List Award. (See photos.)

The LigerBots have now qualified for the New England District Championship at Boston University, April 13-14, based on their robot’s success on the Power Up playing field and garnering the Engineering Inspiration Award and Imagery awards at district-level events. The New England Championship, like all FRC events, is free and open to the public and will be live streamed. Everyone is invited to cheer with the team in the stands and be escorted by a LigerBot on a “pit tour” of all the competing FRC robots.

The Engineering Inspiration Award celebrates the team’s outstanding success in advancing respect and appreciation for engineering within its school and community. The judges said, “[The LigerBots exemplify] coopertition. With 30 outreach events this year alone, this team sets the standard for not only getting STEM into their local community, but worldwide. From science fairs to 3D printing, fixing school equipment to creating their own internal grant system, this team is truly an inspiration. On top of all that, this team taught us all how to be safe this year with their award-winning animation video.” The LigerBots will be eligible to compete for the next level of this award at the New England District Championship.

In addition to the team-wide awards, outstanding individual LigerBots have received several awards this season. At the Revere event, Newton North HS sophomore and LigerBots CMO Douglas was named a Dean’s List Award District Championship finalist. The Dean’s List Award celebrates outstanding student leaders with exemplary passion for and effectiveness at attaining FIRST ideals. He and Coach Igor, whose nomination for the Woodie Flowers Award was presented in March at the North Shore Event, will be considered for the same awards at the next level at the New England Championship.

If all goes well at the District Championship, the LigerBots will qualify for the FRC World Championship in Detroit, on April 25-28, and will then immediately need to raise significant money for the $5,000 competition fee and travel expenses. The LigerBots are supported solely by corporate sponsors and individual donors. If you’d like to help the team, you can donate online via Paypal or the LigerBots website, which also has information about donating by check.

A Destination Imagination team of Newton 4th graders has earned top honors in the state and will represent Massachusetts in the Destination Imagination Global Finals in Knoxville, TN over Memorial Day weekend.  This is the 5th year in a row that Newton students have won this honor!  This team won by engineering a structure weighing 28 grams yet holding 720 pounds — more than held by any other team’s structure in the state.  The team of students from Bowen, Cabot, Burr, and Solomon Schechter also had to create and present a performance, including a technical component, to a panel of judges.

Destination Imagination (DI) is a global creative problem-solving competition for teams of up to seven children in Grades K-12 to collaborate on solutions to unique STEAM challenges. Students work independently from parents and learn life skills such as communicating and listening, empathy towards others, being a problem solver, and making connections across complex ideas.

Newton DI was formed eight years ago and has been growing ever since, with 17 teams participating this year. Matthew Miller, founder of Newton DI, says, “In DI, parents are not allowed to be a part of the solution. As a result, we see participants taking risks, learning new skills, and stepping outside of their comfort zone. The best feeling in the world is when a parent at the end of the season tells me that they have never seen their child any happier.”

Congratulations to the Science Teams of Newton North HS and Newton South HS for placing 2nd and 3rd respectively among 51 high school teams in the preliminary results of this year’s Massachusetts Science Olympiad held at Framingham State University. Each team competed in 25 events throughout the all-day event.Acton-Boxborough placed first, as it has since 2009, when Newton North last came out on top.

The Newton LigerBots participated in their first 2018 district competition this weekend, the North Shore District Event at Reading Memorial HS.  During the opening ceremonies, the team’s award-winning Safety Award Animation was shown, and on the second day of competition team CTO Cam played the national anthem on his trumpet. The LigerBots participated in competitions for FIRST awards as well as the FIRST Power Up competition. At the end of regular competition matches, the team was ranked 10th.  The LigerBots were selected by the Bionics from Billerica to be on Alliance 6, joined by Terminal Velocity from Burlington. The LigerBots also scored a record-setting high score of 861 for this game.

The LigerBots were recognized with several awards:

• The team received recognition for winning the 2018 FIRST Safety Animation Award, sponsored by UL, for the team’s Safety Animation video, which will be played at 160 FRC competitions worldwide this year.
• Team mentor Igor Tepermeister was named a Woody Flowers Nominee at this competition, advancing to the next level of competition. This award recognizes an outstanding individual motivator for excellence in communicating and challenging students to communicate clearly and succinctly.
• The team received the Imagery Award, given in honor of Jack Kamen, Dean’s father, for his dedication to art and illustration and his devotion to FIRST. This award celebrates attractiveness in engineering and outstanding visual aesthetic integration of machine and team appearance. The judges said, “This award rewards [the LigerBots’] ability to do hard work, great design, and agility. Their planning is professional, and their presence is essential. For these reasons and their elegant bots, the Imagery Award goes to Team 2877, the LigerBots.”

The LigerBots’ next competition will be at the Greater Boston District Event on April 7-8 at Revere HS (101 School St., Revere), and the events on the final day are free, open to the public, and a blast to see.

Last Friday evening, students — as teams and individuals — displayed their inventions and results of scientific inquiry at Cabot Elementary School’s 18th annual Invention Invasion — an event sponsored by the Cabot PTO and faculty. This year, the event also featured Night Skies’ Starlab inflatable planetarium for shows every 20 minutes. 

For the second year in a row, Newton North HS students visited Nicaragua over February vacation to study tropical ecology and sustainable living through the NNHS Global Education Program’s Nicaragua Ecology Trip.  Led by North North HS biology teacher Anndy Dannenberg and Brandeis University ecologist Dr. Eric Olson, the group of 11 students spent two nights on an organic farm (where even human waste is expertly composted), visited an ecolodge (that uses photovoltaics and wind for power and captures rainwater for irrigation and clothes washing), and then spent several days in “community tourism,” boarding with four host families in a small coastal fishing village. The group sighted all three species of monkeys found in Nicaragua, including the elusive spider monkey. A key focus of the trip was studying spiders, to the dismay of some arachnophobes in the group. Other topics of study included:

• How to recognize and survey for jumping spiders (family Salticidae)?
• How do hummingbird and “buzz” pollination syndromes work?
• What allows mangrove trees to thrive in low-oxygen salty mud?
• How can we access the forest canopy using a mix of caving and rock climbing techniques?
• How can a non-native invasive tree become an employment opportunity for underemployed fishermen?
• How many meals of rice and beans can be eaten before one longs for dietary diversity?

The LigerBots — Newton’s citywide high-school robotics team — has completed the design and construction of Chronos, the robot that the team has created for the upcoming 2018 FIRST Robotics Competition season. You’ll be able to see Chronos in action at these competitive events (which are part of the full schedule of full schedule of FRC competitions, all open to the public):

• North Shore District  Event: March 17-18 at Reading Memorial High School
• Greater Boston District Event:  April 7-8 at Revere High School

With sufficient skill and luck, the LigerBots may qualify for the New England District Championship, as well.  Stay tuned.  In the meantime, here’s a short introductory video:

Congratulations to Bigelow Middle School science teacher Mary Buttiglieri, who is one of three educators statewide inducted into the Massachusetts Hall of Fame for Science Educators this year. As noted in the Newton TAB, achievements of this inspired and inspiring teacher include initiating the school’s Science Night and an after-school Girls in Science club.

Congratulations to Newton North HS’s Science Team for winning first place last Sunday in the first annual Harvard Science Olympiad Invitational, among 34 high-school teams competing. The NNHS team placed first in 6 of the tournament’s 23 events.

Congratulations to the LigerBots — Newton’s robotics team spanning both high schools — for placing first in a worldwide competition to create a short animated video explaining and supporting safety guidelines of FIRST robotics competitions.  Winning the 2018 FIRST Safety Animation Award, sponsored by UL, is a highly visible achievement, as the team’s safety video will be seen by about 500,000 spectators at various FIRST robotics competitions worldwide throughout the 2018 season. On the LigerBots blog, the team describes the inspiration and challenges of creating this engaging, informative video based on the theme of this year’s competition, Power Up.