The 3rd annual Liberty Science Center Engineers Week Exhibition hosted by the FIRST LEGO League (FLL) team Landroids #109 will be held on President’s Day, Monday, February 15, 2010, 9 AM – 4 PM.

This event showcases the top NJ teams from the 2009/10 season. This year will also include representative teams from the FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) and Jr. FIRST LEGO League (Jr.FLL).

Participating Team List (will continue be updated):

Morning Session (9 AM – 12:30 PM)
FLL #4832 The Atoms Family (NJ State 1st place Champions Award)
FLL #3691 HMS Platinum (NJ State 1st place Robot Performance Award)
FLL #4104 Yobotics (NJ State 3rd place Robot Design Award)
Jr.FLL #103 Spongebots (NJ State Complexity and Decoration Award)
FTC # 3539 Say Watt? (NJ & DE Inspire Awards)

Afternoon Session (12:30 PM – 4:00 PM)
FLL #109 Landroids (NJ State 1st place Robot Design Award)
FLL #4764 Bergen Bees (NJ State 2nd Place Project Award)
Jr. FLL #465 Special Lego Builder (Effort and Learning Award)
FTC #247 & 248 The reVOLT & Fatal Error (Winning Alliance)
FTC #3415 Lancers (FTC support & assistance)

Location:
Liberty Science Center
222 Jersey City Boulevard * Jersey City, NJ * 07305

Three seasons (2-1/2 years) of FIRST LEGO League, a life time of best friends since kindergarten. Year-round of hard work, research, playing, exhibitions, competitions and FLL outreach.

On December 12th, Forty-six teams from 9 qualifying tournaments throughout the State gathered at the 2009 New Jersey FIRST LEGO League (FLL) Smart Move State Championship tournament at Mt. Olive High School. Five teams from Livingston Robotics Club (LRC) participated in this all-day event. Landroids #109 took the 1st place Robot Design Award while Thunderclan #3375 from LRC covered the 2nd place Robot Design Award.

In our 3rd and final FLL season, Landroids, the two times State Champion’s Award winner, passed the torch of the State Champions and FLL ambassador title to The Atoms Family #4832 from Flanders, NJ.  The Champion’s Award is the most prestigious award in FLL, given to a team who in the big picture, was the strongest in all of the 5 categories combined: Research, Robot Design, Robot Performance, Teamwork and FLL values.  This 4th-year team, The Atoms Family, will be representing New Jersey at the FLL World Festival in April 2010 at Atlanta, Georgia to compete with 84 teams from 35 countries.

Best of luck to The Atoms Family, have fun at the World Festival!

The 2nd place Champion’s Award winner, the NanoGurus #6831, is a 4th-year team from Parsippany, and also this year’s 2nd place Robot Performance winner. HMS Platinum from Hillsborough achieved two rounds of perfect 400 points, easily took the 1st place Robot Performance Award.

All teams had spent the morning going through the “Smart Move” research project presentations, robot design interviews, and team work challenges. These three categories each comprised of 25% of the total scores.  The afternoon robot rounds account for the final 25% of the scores, but was the most exciting part to watch.  The LRC teams had a very inconsistent robot performance results in the afternoon.  Landroids who could draw a crowd at the pit area with 400 points rounds, could not repeat it at the competition tables, only came away with 300 points to ranked #9.  Thunderclan likewise was struggling with 190 points until the last 315 point round to take the #7 spot.  Meanwhile, Alpha Force and r2d2 grabbed the 13th & 14th places, with Landrias ended up at #16 out of 46 teams.

This concluded the intense and exciting three months of our FLL season. Check out the “Smart Move” robot missions videos from Landroids and Landrias. These big brother and little sister teams were trained together but had developed very different design styles.

For the Daily Record video coverage of this event, click here.

For The AlternativePress news 12/23/09, click here.

For the complete 2009 NJ State FLL winner list, see nycnjfirst.org website.

Four Livingston Robotics Club (LRC) teams attended the Montclair and Sparta qualifying events on 12/4/09 and 12/5/09.

The Friday evening Montclair tournament was held at a local church, where all 12 teams could easily mingle and see the robot performance without running back and forth between the pit area and the competition floor. SciBotech #2385 received special recognition with a Judge’s Award and ranked #5 in Robot Performance.  Team r2d2 took the Project Award and ranked #4 in Robot Performance.

The all-girls team Landrias #3724 did surprisingly well, and received the Champion’s Award for being first place in Robot Design, Research Project and Teamwork, as well as ranking #2 in Robot Performance with a top score of 355 out of 400.  The Landrias also received a special visit from Montclair Mayor, Jerry Fried, who  had previously met with the team and taught them many biking implementation strategies.

On Saturday, team Technophiles #3088 participated in the Sparta Qualifier, and came in 7^th place for Robot Performance out of 14 teams.   The team was especially proud of their score in the area of Teamwork.

Five out of seven LRC FIRST LEGO League teams (Landroids, Landrias, Alpha Force, Thunderclan and r2d2) will advance to the State tournament, which will be held at the Mt. Olive High School on 12/12/09.

For the season-long newsletter coverages on Livingston Robotics Club, see:

The AlternativePress, November 30, 2009

HCHY of Livingston, LRC news

NYC/NJ FIRST community has recently revamped its website to post the latest information in JFLL, FLL, FTC and FRC. Therefore, to see a list of participating teams at various qualifying tournaments and the winners from these events, please go to nycnjfirst.org

Three Livingston Robotics Club (LRC) teams attended the Hillsborough qualifying event on 11/21/09.  Landroids #109, Thunderclan #3375 and Alpha Force #3360 each won the Champion’s Award, 1^st place research and 1^st place technical presentation respectively. These teams also placed #3, #7 and #8 in robot performance out of 23 attending teams.

Landroids had encountered major difficulties with the overhead flood lights which had severely affected the robot light sensor readings and navigation onto the bridge.  Nevertheless, the team managed to make some last minute robot and program modifications to gain some scores back in the last round.

(l to r) Alpha Force, Landroids, Thunderclan at Hillsborough Qualifier 11/21/09

These winnings at the Hillsborough tournament have been a great season opening for Livingston Robotics Club. Three other teams — r2d2 #436, SciBotech #2385, and Landrias #3724 — will compete at Montclair Qualifier on December 4^th; and Technophiles #3088 will compete at Sparta Qualifier on December 5th.  Winning teams from these regional qualifying tournaments will advance onto the New Jersey State Championship Tournament at Mt. Olive High School in Flanders on December 12th. Our LRC Jr. FLL team, Spongebots, will be joining everyone there for a “Smart Move” exhibition.

For Hillsborough FLL event photos, click here.