Editor’s note: The Ligerbots ask that only students’ first names be used in news stories.

The Ligerbots, Newton’s high school FIRST Robotics team, won the Hopper Division at this year’s FIRST World Championship in Houston, beating out 74 other teams. This is their first division win at Worlds since they were founded 17 years ago. They also won the Autonomous Award for their division, awarded to the team with an outstanding autonomous design.

FIRST Robotics is an international robotics competition for high school students. At the beginning of each year, teams are told what that year’s game is. They must then design a robot that can complete the tasks required, like throwing a ball into a hoop or hanging into bars.

Teams start at local competitions and then regional ones, each hoping for a spot at Worlds. There are over 3,700 teams but only 600 Worlds spots, so getting there is competitive.

Building a functioning robot is no individual task. There’s 114 students, and everyone has a role to play. About half of the students attend Newton North, and about half attend Newton South: the team name is a portmanteau of NNHS’s mascot the Tigers and NSHS’s mascot the Lions. Everyone gathers together to watch the kickoff video at the beginning of the year, and then it’s time to get to work.

“We only have eight weeks to go from a PDF of the rules to a robot that’s zooming around the field,” said Yonatan T.-M., a senior at Newton South who will be heading to the University of Massachusetts Amherst in the fall to study mechanical engineering.

Because Newton South has better mechanical shops, the robots are built there. They can improve their robot throughout the year after seeing how it does at different competitions.

This year, they were proud they made their robot better at climbing after seeing another team’s robot climb, something they think contributed to their divisional win.

For students who are interested in engineering, FIRST opens doors they weren’t aware of. Aaron, a junior at Newton North, joined his freshman year. “I knew I wanted to go into something in the STEM field, and I was really captivated by the scope of the robots they build,” he said.

But there was a lot he didn’t know.

“I’d never even heard of CAD,” he said, referring to the drafting software the students use for the initial design of the robots. Now he’s one of the primary designers.

Shivangi, a junior at Newton North, joined the team last year. One of her friends was on the team and was always showing her videos of the robot, which she initially wasn’t interested in. But after seeing Ligerbots participate in a Northeastern University internship program where they designed robotic assistance devices for people with disabilities, she changed her mind.

“It’s a robotics team, but it’s more than that, it’s a sport, it’s a community,” she said.

There’s more to FIRST than just engineering abilities. Students also learn to pitch their ideas to other students and how to do publicity and fundraising. Felicia J., a sophomore at Newton North, joined because her brother was on the team.

“I was pretty timid, and I didn’t like to speak that much,” she said. But through working on marketing for the Ligerbots, she’s grown more confident in her public speaking abilities. “I was originally going to be only mechanical, but now I’ve done everything from video production to press releases, and I’ve gotten to work with lots of different people. There’s a lot of different skills inside and outside the shop, and training new students is also fun,” said Yonatan.

Coach Chuck T. began coaching students on writing and speaking when his son was a member of the team. But even after his children graduated Newton North (2017 and 2020), he continued to coach. “I get a lot of joy out of working with the students, and seeing them go from shy freshmen to people who can just talk about this stuff,” he said. “We don’t use kids to build robots, we use robots to build people.”

While it is a competition, teams are also expected to cooperate. Part of this is built into the competition itself. Teams are initially assigned to alliances with other two teams, akin to a 3 on 3 basketball match. The best scoring team (points are awarded based on how many tasks the robot can complete) can then pick the teams it would like to be its allies in the next round.

But the Ligerbots have taken that spirit further, hosting a RoboCon in Newton for teams in New England to learn and discuss not only robotics building but also other aspects like publicity.

“It’s all about constantly recognizing there’s always room to improve,” said Shivangi.

Another aspect of FIRST is community outreach. The Ligerbots host many events in Newton designed to expose kids (and adults!) to robotics and other aspects of science.

“They’re fun activities, but you’re teaching science principles,” said Yonatan.

They’ve had 86 events in the last three years, including at Newton village days and the pumpkin smashing event at Newton City Hall, where leftover Halloween pumpkins are destroyed. In their distinctive tie-dyed orange t-shirts, they’re happy to show off what a robot can do around the community.