On February 21, Landroids of Livingston Robotics Club (LRC) was the host of the 4th Annual NJ FIRST Engineers Week Robotics Exhibition at Liberty Science Center from 9AM to 4PM.

As a tradition, Landroids invited top New Jersey FIRST teams to showcase the wide range of programs from Jr. FIRST LEGO League (Jr. FLL), FIRST LEGO League (FLL), and FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) to the public.

In the snowy morning of the President’s Day, many robotics teams were busy giving robot demonstrations to thousands of visitors. Landroids and Say Watt from Edison, the Inspire Award winners from Delaware and New Jersey Championships, are the regulars at these annual events ever since they were both a FLL team.

These big robots built by high-school teens, with the mechanism to grab batons and balance themselves on a see-saw, attracted a lot of interest from the children.  The young visitors were able to remote control a smaller robots in a simulated FTC field. Landroids’ robot even came out of the field to interact with children.  Both Landroids and Say Watt will meet up again in St. Louis for the World FTC Championship

Teams Jaguars from Plainsboro and Yobotics from Montclair, the first and second place Champion Award winners at New Jersey State FIRST LEGO League (FLL) Championship, took turns to run their robots on the field to show how they complete the “Body Forward” missions.  Jaguars will be representing New Jersey to compete in the FLL North American Open Tournament that will take place at LEGOLAND in Southern California in May.

Teams J-Droids from Wayne who took the 1^st place Teamwork Award and Panther Power White from New Providence, who earned the 1^st place Project Award, also showed their research projects to visitors and explained what it is like to participate in the robotics program for 9-to-14 year olds.

Two LRC teams from Junior FIRST LEGO League (Jr.FLL) program for 6-to-9 year olds showed their research projects and their robotics models. In the morning, Legobotics showed the model of hospital bed and bone drill that they built using LEGO robotics kits. In the afternoon, Robosharks continued with their project and LEGO model on prosthetic arm.

Beside the FIRST programs, Landroids also set up the Google XPRIZE Moonbots field and let children play with remote-controlled the LEGO Mindstorms robots to roam around the simulated lunar surface.

This exhibition is also an opportunity for the FIRST teams to interact and exchange ideas and experience in a non-competitive environment, while have fun doing community outreach and volunteering together.

The event was very well received by children and parents, and the exhibition has been growing in size since 2008. It can only be made possible by these FIRST teams who work very hard to get the public to see the excitement in joining one of the FIRST programs.

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