Livingston Robotics Club (LRC) – A FIRST robotics community network (FTC, FLL and Jr.FLL) for K-12 in New Jersey, USA

Landroids Won FIRST Tech Challenge Highest Honor at the World Championship 2012

LRC — Fri, 04 May 2012 15:42:51 +0000

Livingston Robotics Club’ founder team, the Landroids #4220 has took home the #1 Inspire Award at the 2012 FIRST Tech Challenge World Championship on April 28, 2012. The team also won the Finalist Alliance Award and the Franklin Division Winning Alliance Award as the alliance captain.

The Inspire Award is the highest honor at the FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) World Championship, which was held at the America’s Center and Edward Jones Dome in St. Louis, MO from April 25 to April 28, 2012

The Inspire Award is given to a team that truly embodied the challenge of the FTC program, best represented as a role model, a top contender for all judging categories and is a strong competitor on the field. The Inspire Award Winner is an inspiration to other teams, acting with Gracious Professionalism™ both on and off the playing field.

Landroids was also the only undefeated team throughout the qualifying rounds amongst 128 teams from 13 countries. The final alliance and division winner were won by teaming up with two other high performing teams: Cougars Robotics #4215 from Ohio and Techno Clovers #4240 from Maryland.

Landroids’ achievement will be inducted to the FIRST Tech Challenge Hall of Fame for the 2011-12 “Bowled Over” season.

For pictures and video of the FTC World Championship, visit Landroids’ Facebook.

Exit 5 Robotics’ Visits Liberty Science Center Again for their 2nd year of RoboCup Junior

exit5robotics — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 17:17:24 +0000

Exit 5 Robotics took another shot at RoboCup Junior this week. For this effort, the team added 2 new team members, bringing the team count up to 8 girls. With a few days of preparation, the team did get a working robot in place the night before the event. The team participated in “Rescue A, Primary School” for ages up to 14. The Rescue A challenge is develop a robot to autonomously navigate several rooms, avoid obstacles, find a patient, and rescue the patient by bringing them to a rescue area. The actual playing on the competition day presented quite a few surprises for the all the teams. The Exit 5 girls reprogrammed and modified their robot furiously in the 2 hours allotted for changes. Although the team did not place with an award, they did learn quite a bit from their experience and came away with valuable lessons for future competitions. The team finished up the day exploring Liberty Science Center and walking the high ropes course on construction I-beams 20ft above the ground.

Exit 5 Robotics, There at the Science Fair, of Morristown’s Thomas Jefferson Elementary School

exit5robotics — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 17:40:00 +0000

Exit 5 Robotics was invited to demonstrate at Morristown’s Thomas Jefferson Elementary School’s Science Fair on March 21st. Over 200 students and parents attended the science night event. The gym was filled with nearly 50 science exhibits created by Thomas Jefferson’s students.

Exit 5 Robotics partnered with Garden State Robotics, and Livingston Robotics Club to create a robotics corner in the exhibit. The Exit 5 Team showed their robots built for the 2011/2012 Lego First Lego League Food Factor competition (ages 9-14). The team also whipped up an ad hoc sentry robot that patrolled a 4 foot strip of masking tape on the exhibit floor. Giving something for the kids to look forward to, Garden State Robotics offered drive demos of their VEX robots, focused on middle school and high school students. Livingston Robotics showed videos and presented literature promoting FLL, FTC, and FRC.

Word on the street is that several teams will be originating out of Thomas Jefferson Elementary for next year’s FLL Senior Solutions competition. We’re excited to hear the news and look forward to seeing them out and about this fall.

2012 Jr. FIRST LEGO League Expo – “Snack Attack”, 5/26/2012

LRC — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 15:00:29 +0000

The 3rd annual outdoor Livingston Robotics Club Jr. FIRST LEGO League (Jr. FLL) Expo is here! All 2011-12 registered “Snack Attack” Jr. FLL teams are invited to this largest outdoor Jr. FLL Expo in the nation. (Updated May 9, 2012)

Date: Saturday, May 26, 2012
Time: 10:00 AM to 3:00 PM
Location: Livingston Oval, next to Livingston Library
(357 South Livingston Ave. Livingston, NJ 07039)

The Jr. FLL Expo will include additional free enrichment and outdoor activities:

A 45-minute interactive show about chemistry behind the food by “Mad Science”
Hands-on experiments related to the science and food by “Mad Science”
Jr. FLL teams presenting their “Snack Attack” projects and LEGO models
“Livingston’s Stuff The Bus” food drive for Livingston’s C.H.O.W. (Community Hunger Outreach Warehouse) of the St. Philomena Church (Each person bring a can if you can!)
Enjoy many family friendly activities including pony rides, a petting zoo, craft tents, face painters, a giant blow-up obstacle course and slides, fire trucks, adopt-a-pet, and a chalk walk, Go Karts, food and music among others.
FIRST LEGO League and FIRST Tech Challenge robot demonstration by team Landroids
Learn about senior care from Barnabas Medical Center as a preview of the 2012-13 “Super Senior” and “Senior Solutions” challenges.

Registration fee is $35 per team for participating Jr.FLL team. Event is open and free to the public to visit.

Send an email with your team name, team #, and number of team members attending the Expo to jrfll@livingstonrobotics.org to register by May 10, 2012.

Learn about why the Livingston Robotics Club Jr. FLL Expos are so special! http://www.livingstonrobotics.org/expo/

Photos from LRC’s past Jr. FLL Expos can be found here: 2010 Smart Move; 2011 Body Forward.

Attending teams (14 teams as of May 7, 2012):

285 Dragobots (LRC), Old Bridge, NJ

618 Robo Benders, Plainsboro, NJ

1241 Brain Builders (LRC), Kendall Park, NJ

1496 Exotic Fruits, Parsippany, NJ

1854 Spongebots (LRC), Livingston, NJ

2068 Blue Brick Builder Bunnies, Montvale, NJ

2515 Lego Tacklers, Secaucus, NJ

2639 Dayton Wolf Den, Dayton, NJ

2684 Legobotics (LRC), Livingston, NJ

2742 Rocket Bayblade (LRC), Millburn, NJ

2938 Super MEGA Bolts (LRC), Livingston, NJ

2941 Legoistas (LRC), West Orange, NJ

2942 Awesome Octopus Dudes (LRC), West Orange, NJ

2949 Super LEGO Dragons (LRC), West Orange, NJ

Exit 5 Robotics exhibits at LSC’s Engineer’s Week Feb 20

exit5robotics — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 15:07:32 +0000

On Feb 20 Exit 5 Robotics helped host an FLL exhibition table at Liberty Science Center’s eWeek 2012, aka Engineer’s Week (Thanks to Landroids for the invitation). With lots of families stopping by to check out the robots, the girls had a busy time sharing their experiences with young engineers, future scientists, budding mathematicians, upcoming roboticists, and emerging technologists. Exit 5 Robotics had time to relax and chat it up with with other FLL teams also exhibiting, including CyberHawks, Germinators, RoboWarriors, Cannibal Tunas, and XNihil.

At the other displays, the Exit 5 team spent a lot of time with the 3D printers from MakerBot. And Miss Teen New Jersey also found time to stop by the table.

Upcoming Junior FIRST LEGO League Events

LRC — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 15:53:31 +0000

In preparation for our Jr.FLL Expo in May, we are going to have two events on March 25 at our Club House.

Jr.FLL Shining Star Open House (3:00pm to 4:30pm): LRC is in the process of forming another Shining Star team in the Junior FIRST LEGO League division (ages 6-9) for children with special needs. Children will work on a science and LEGO building project in April and May and participate in Jr.FLL Expo on May 26, 2012 in Livingston. See this page for more details of this event.

Jr.FLL Team Matching – Last Chance (4:30pm to 6:00pm): We received many requests from parents to match their child into a Junior FIRST LEGO League team (ages 6-9). Here is the last chance for getting into a Jr.FLL team for this season to have enough time to work on a science project in April and May in order to participate in our Jr.FLL Expo on May 26, 2012. See this page for more details of this event. Please note, this event is not related to our Shining Star initiave mentioned in the above. Any six-to-nine year old child can participate.

Landroids Going to St. Louis FTC World Championship 2012!

LRC — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 21:39:16 +0000

LRC FTC team Landroids #4220 recently won the most prestigious #1 Inspire Award and the Final Alliance at the New Jersey FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) State Championship tournaments held at NJIT on 2/12/12, and is eligible to compete at the 2012 World Championship in St. Louis in April.

Back in January, Landroids has already won the #2 Inspire Award and the Winning Alliance Award at the Delaware FTC State Championship on 1/28/12. Just last weekend, Landroids again took the #1 Inspire Award and Winning Alliance at the South Central Pennsylvania Qualifier on 2/18/12. The team has proven to be a role model team, a top contender in all judged categories, and a strong competitor on the competition field.

On President’s Day, Landroids hosted the 5th annual Liberty Science Center Engineers Week Robotics Exhibition, invited a dozen teams, over 100 FIRST members and volunteers for a joint exhibition. Approximately 4,000 people visited the science center on this day.

For the latest updates on team Landroids, visit their Facebook.

Liberty Science Center NJ FIRST LEGO League Qualifier Video

LRC — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 13:41:48 +0000

Video from the 2011 Liberty Science Center NJ FIRST LEGO League qualifier, hosted by Livingston Robotics Club FTC team Landroids. Come back to Liberty Science Center on President’s Day Monday, Feb. 20, 2012 for the 5th annual Eweek FIRST Exhibition. Landroids will be inviting a dozen award winning NJ FRC, FTC, FLL and Jr. FLL teams for a day of joint exhibition. Want to find out more about the FIRST programs? Want to talk to the coaches and teams about their experience and how to get involved? That is the day to do so. Don’t miss out!

Click here to view the embedded video.

Exit 5 Robotics’ Visit to Washington Middle School Science Club

exit5robotics — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 02:13:03 +0000

Future roboticists are everywhere! On 1/24/12, Livingston Robotics Club FLL team, Exit 5 Robotics, visited the Science Club at Washington Middle School, in Harrison, NJ. With nearly 20 students in the club, they hope to start a team or two or three or four, for FLL or Robocup Jr in the upcoming months. There were a lot of questions and a lot of interest in the FLL competition. Exit 5ers demonstrated their robot completing FLL Food Factor missions and discussed the work & fun that goes into the competition prep.

The Washington Science Club in turn showed some of the work they had done in previous years at Stevens Institute of Technology with NXT powered submersibles (very impressive!). We got an in-depth look (laugh here) at the robots that had been setup to go for a swim with Nemo. The 90 minutes visit swam by quickly. We very much look forward to seeing the boys and girls of Washington Middle School at upcoming events.

Exit 5 Robotics @ the Morris Museum Toyland Family Festival

exit5robotics — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 16:33:57 +0000

FLL team Exit 5 Robotics #4669 concluded a very busy day at the Morris Museum’s Lego Toyland Family Festival on 12/27/11, attended by over 1400 kids and adults.

The team demonstrated their competition robot on the Food Factor game field and handled questions from the inquisitive audience. Extra robots were also on-hand for kids to program on the spot. Even an hour after opening, the larger than expected attendance wrapped around the building in a line just to enter the event. Morris Museum’s festival also included a Lego People’s Choice Contest for best Lego creations, Lego art exhibition, and a large display of toy trains up to 40 ft long.