To kick off this year’s Robot Block Party, we had the world’s first Robot Sidewalk Parade, led by Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts, Kim Driscoll and Miss Massachusetts Chelsea Vuong.

“ We are proud of the work that’s happening in Massachusetts, a lot of it tied to MassRobotics. This is a major part, we think, of our emerging future. Being able to tie the great work you’re doing to connect amazing products to how people can use them in an array of fields, and it’s happening here in Massachusetts. We are the innovation hub for robotics.”
LG Kim Driscoll

The large tents were filled with dozens of companies and universities showcasing their research and the latest in robotics with demos and interactive exhibits. Participants ranged from startups to larger corporations along with academia and several high school student robotics teams.

The block party showcased everything from robotic dogs, drones, humanoids, collaborative arms and grippers to underwater robot vehicles and bionic butterflies, and even an autonomous vehicle.

Kids and adults of all ages were able to interact with and control robots. This included controlling the Boston Dynamics dogs, flying drones in MITRE’s drone obstacle course, driving underwater ROVs in a water tank from the BlueTech summer academy and controlling Analog Devices’s (ADI) mini cars. Attendees were even able to tackle the Mobile Virtual Player (MVP) robot from MVP Robotics.

A big thank you to all the companies and universities who participated in our Block Party:

Analog Devices
Ava Robotics
Boston Dynamics
Brecourt Solutions Inc.
Cleo Robotics
Duckietown
Education First
FESTO
Gaia AI
Harmonic Drive

Harvard Biodesign Lab
Institute for Experiential Robotics at Northeastern
iRobot
MedAcuity
The MITRE Corporation
Mitsubishi Electric
Motional
MVP Robotics
National Guard
Olin college of engineering

Ominous industries
Northeastern University
Symbotic
TargetArm
Tatum Robotics
UMass Lowell
Walmart Innovation and Automation
Wentworth Institute of Technology
Worcester Polytech Institute

The Block party also featured numerous student teams. These included:

AZTECH Robotics
Billerica Memorial High school team
FRC Ligerbots
Melrose Red Hawk Robotics
Pioneer Robotics
Scituate High School Cyber Sailors
Spartans
Team Vertex
Tewksbury Memorial High School Team

We would like to give a special thank you to all of these teams. Several of them also participated in the parade, full of spirit while showing off their team colors and robots. These students are truly an inspiration to adults and children alike.

Here are a few of the groups who joined us this year and what they had to say about the event and/or their robots:

“We are the FRC 157 Aztechs robotics team based out of Marlborough, MA. We are an original and sustaining legacy team having competed in all of FIRST’s events since the organization was founded in 1992. This was our third robot block party. At this year’s robot block party we showcased our robot, Rawry. We designed Rawry to compete in the 2022-2023 FIRST FRC robotics competition, Charged Up. In the competition, we had to pick up cones and cubes and place them on three different height poles and platforms. Some teams designed their robot to focus on only cubes or only cones, so we decided to make our robot be able to do both tasks.”

“FTC Team 12589 Pioneer Robotics participated in the RoboBoston Block Party for the second year in a row! They showcased their state championship winning robot, PlugBot, from last year’s challenge called POWERPLAY. They even let the public drive the robot to score points like a real FTC match by using the robot to place cones onto poles of varying heights.”

“FRC Team 1474, the Tewksbury Titans, thoroughly enjoyed our involvement in RoboBoston 2023. We’ve attached a few, not very good pictures, and the text below describes some highlights. A key highlight was simply expanding the horizon of people with whom we share FIRST and our robot. We do several in-town events, but RoboBoston draws from a much larger crowd of interested participants. In fact, two different groups of people were touring Boston from other countries and just wandered into the event. A second highlight was fueling the fascination kids have with robots. Even a small robot movement causes great excitement, and little kids are beside themselves watching robots complete tasks. We enjoyed speaking with their parents as well, introducing FIRST and giving them perspective on FRC. And lastly, we enjoyed reconnecting with our friends from the other FRC teams. It’s a tight community. We thank you for the opportunity to participate! More robots!!”

The amount of children expressing interest in the robotic teams was amazing. We overheard many younger students discussing how they wanted to be on the robotic teams for their future high school, specifically citing the robotics teams as their inspiration. One young boy in particular told MassRobotics staff that he wanted to be a roboticist when he grows up because of the high school FIRST teams.

We look forward to hosting more Robotics clubs and teams at next year’s annual Robot Block Party.

The event was made possible with the collaboration with WSDevelopment and our sponsors: Walmart Innovation and Automation, Education First, and The MITRE Corporation.

A big thank you to our volunteers: