{"id":339,"date":"2026-06-12T18:33:14","date_gmt":"2026-06-12T18:33:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cambridgemovinghub.com\/?p=339"},"modified":"2026-06-12T18:33:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-12T18:33:14","slug":"cambridge-robotics-team-makes-the-podium-in-greece","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cambridgemovinghub.com\/?p=339","title":{"rendered":"Cambridge robotics team makes the podium in Greece"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Like many a modern success story, the Juicebox Robotics team began this season in a Cambridge basement and ended it earning recognition on an international stage.<\/p>\n

Read more MIT Professor takes on Congress<\/a><\/p>\n

The team capped off a season of four top four finishes with a trip to Greece for the FIRST Lego League (FLL) World Championship. FLL is a global youth robotics competition in which players build and program autonomous robots for a timed robot game while simultaneously developing an innovation project tied to a real-world theme. This year, the competition\u2019s theme was \u2018Unearthed\u2019, challenging teams to explore ideas connected to archeology.<\/p>\n

While at FLL, the team placed third in the \u2018Alliance Cup,\u2019 which sees teams partner with randomly-selected companion teams and run collaborative missions.<\/p>\n

The Juicebox team is a small but formidable grouping of three middle-schoolers \u2013 Quinlan Blankinship, Jordon Li and Miro Vinck \u2014 coached and mentored by Erik and Sen Blankinship, Quinlan\u2019s parents, and Patrick Vinck, Miro\u2019s father. They operate independently of any school or organization and has appeared under different aliases since it came together in 2019. The team was started by Quinlan\u2019s older brother, Forrester, now a sophomore at CRLS.<\/p>\n

They put together a winning showing in Massachusetts competitions this year, earning first place finishes in two different categories in the Red Hawk Rumble 2025 Qualifier, followed by a third-place Champions Award finish at the 2025 FLL Massachusetts East Championship.<\/p>\n

Erik Blankinship said that the team had expected to do \u201cokay\u201d this season, and that everyone was wary of the work required if the team did manage to move on in the competition. \u201cThe moment we got the [MA East] award everyone cheered, and then I think it took about five seconds and we went, \u2018Oh my gosh, there is a lot more work ahead of us.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Since August, the team has met twice a week for two hours each session to help build and refine their robots. \u201cReally, at its core, it\u2019s not about robots, it\u2019s about teamwork, dedication, follow-through and solving hard problems,\u201d Erik Blankinship said.<\/p>\n

Recently, Juicebox showed Cambridge Day its robot, a platform which the team has reconfigured with different mounts over the years. At first glance, it looks like a mishmash of Lego bricks and parts such as wheels and flat ramps. But a closer look at the robot as it glided around a play mat revealed different tools around its frame. Among those is a \u2018French fry grabber,\u2019 made with thin, mostly yellow Lego bricks that extend out accordion-style to push and maneuver objects on the ground.<\/p>\n

Quinlan Blankinship explained that the robot\u2019s autonomy was coded through Pybrix, a Python-based coding language tailored specifically to Lego robotics. \u201cWe used that because the default coding language which Lego provides \u2026 gets very messy when you code [as much as we did].\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more A new kind of close encounter with the aliens among us<\/a><\/p>\n

Beyond coding the competition robot, Miro Vinck spoke about the teamwork which went in to making their concept a reality. \u201cWe all had a part in designing this. I originally came up with the idea to make the robot arm and Jordon helped me build it, and then Quinlan found some design flaws and he helped finalize it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The team\u2019s innovation project this year was creating a \u2018mosaic\u2019 robot capable of scanning and digitally rendering tile mosaics. Inspired by a trip Miro\u2019s was able to make to Pompeii last summer, the team set about researching the idea and developing their robot with help from several local mentors and supporters.<\/p>\n

They met with and received feedback from the Kendall Square-based Robotics and AI Institute, for instance, and Quinlan and Li, both part of Scouting America, separately presented their concept before a group of Scouting peers gathered at the Harvard Peabody Archeology Museum.<\/p>\n

To further test their concept, the team also reached out to ARTAIC, a Boston-based company that uses robots to create custom tile mosaics, which suggested several engineering fixes to focus their project. Then came several visits to MIT\u2019s Koch Center, where ARTAIC had installed a mosaic, to plan and carry out their \u2018proof-of-concept\u2019 test and managed to complete an automated scan.<\/p>\n

The team said throughout the season it received an outpouring of support from the community. A fundraiser set up by the squad helped them raise a little under $7,000, providing them with travel to and accommodations in Greece. There was also a community concert, held at the Union Tavern, to rally support for the team\u2019s trip. \u201cIt was really great to see everyone come together and support us,\u201d said Miro Vinck.<\/p>\n

Spyros Fotopoulos, a senior vice president at the Saloniki Greek Restaurants, one of which sits right off of Harvard Square, made sure that his business was a sponsor for the team\u2019s efforts this year. He was excited that they would be able to visit and compete in his home country of Greece, and also praised the team\u2019s ingenuity. \u201cI would like to think that every business should \u2026 \u00a0invest in and sponsor anything that is innovative, especially when its coming from young kids.\u201d<\/p>\n

Miro Vinck said that the team is uncertain about what exactly they will do next year, but he made it clear that the road was not ending here. \u201cNext year we could do FLL again, or we could move onto some bigger competitions like MRC, and that\u2019s a big part of what we are thinking about right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more \u2018We\u2019re walking on eggshells,\u2019 say some Graham and Parks staff<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Like many a modern success story, the Juicebox Robotics team began this season in a Cambridge basement and ended it earning recognition on an international stage. Read more MIT Professor takes on Congress The team capped off a season of four top four finishes with a trip to Greece for the FIRST Lego League (FLL) […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":338,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[12,181],"class_list":["post-339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-education","tag-robotics"],"yoast_head":"\nCambridge robotics team makes the podium in Greece - Cambridge Moving Hub<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/cambridgemovinghub.com\/?p=339\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Cambridge robotics team makes the podium in Greece - Cambridge Moving Hub\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Like many a modern success story, the Juicebox Robotics team began this season in a Cambridge basement and ended it earning recognition on an international stage. 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