Here, you'll find all the exciting activities and latest developments from our robotics team. With Jason as the lead coach and Heng providing technical guidance, our team is dedicated to exploring the mysteries of robotics technology and enhancing skills through hands-on projects.

Each week, we set new goals and tasks. Team members can innovate at home using mission kits and showcase their unique ideas and solutions at our weekend meetings. You can find our training plans, weekly task details, displays of our team members' impressive work, and video recordings of all robotics competitions here (for team internal viewing only).

Join us and witness the team's growth and breakthroughs in the field of robotics!

On Saturday, December 6, 2025, the HardForge Robotics FIRST® LEGO® League (FLL) team delivered an outstanding performance at the FLL Qualifying Tournament, showcasing both technical excellence and team determination. In a field of more than twenty participating teams, HardForge Robotics achieved a top Robot Game score of 390 points, earning Third Place Overall in the Robot Game. 

This achievement is especially remarkable considering that the HardForge team was formed less than one year ago, comprised of young and relatively new members making their very first appearance in official competition. The team demonstrated substantial growth in engineering design, autonomous programming, and iterative testing throughout the season.

While the team excelled in the Robot Game, the Innovation Project component did not score as highly as hoped, and as a result HardForge Robotics did not qualify for the Massachusetts State Championship this year. Despite this outcome, the students and coaches remain optimistic and motivated. They have taken the judges’ feedback to heart and are already planning improvements for the next season.

The FIRST LEGO League competition challenges students to design, build, and program autonomous LEGO robots to complete missions on a themed field, while also conducting research and presenting solutions to a real-world problem. HardForge Robotics’ performance highlighted their programming accuracy, mechanical ingenuity, resilience under pressure, and collaborative spirit.

Importantly, the team embodied the core values of FIRST LEGO League—Discovery, Innovation, Impact, Inclusion, Teamwork, and Fun—throughout the event. Coaches, mentors, and families are incredibly proud of the students’ dedication, creativity, and growth over the course of the season.

Congratulations to all team members! We are proud of what they have accomplished and look forward to seeing HardForge Robotics continue to learn, innovate, and achieve even greater success in the future.

This video is a test of a LEGO FLL motor, comparing its speed versus power to see which wins under load.

This video from Denis of Hardforge Robotics explains how to prevent a robotic arm from getting stuck and stopping the rest of a code in LEGO robotics [00:17]. They present three solutions:

• Using Speed [02:46]: The code is set to wait for a short period for the motor to gain speed, then monitors the motor's speed. If the speed drops below a certain threshold (indicating something is obstructing it), the code moves on to the next task [03:15].

• Using Time [04:35]: This method sets a time limit for the robotic arm's movement. Regardless of whether the arm gets stuck, after a set amount of time (e.g., three seconds), the code will proceed to the subsequent commands [04:43].

• Using Relative Position and Time [05:50]: This combines both approaches. The code is designed to either wait until the arm reaches a specific relative position (e.g., 360 degrees) OR a set amount of time passes (e.g., three seconds). Whichever condition is met first, the code will then move on to the next part of the program [07:01].

The video demonstrates each method with a simple robotic setup, showing how the subsequent motor still spins even if the initial arm motion is obstructed.