By J.D. O’Gara

On April 26, 2025, ALARM Robotics, which operates out of the Red Brick School in Franklin, held its second Stephen Green FIRST LEGO League Explore Event (SFLLEE). The group, which has received the Engineering Inspiration Award for its outstanding community outreach in teaching younger children, dedicates this event to the memory of Late Mr. Stephen Green, a long time FIRST volunteer, Franklin resident and MA FLL Explore partner who coached robotics teams in Quincy for 20 years and hosted the Quincy FLL Qualifier for multiple years with his wife, Ms. Shelley. 

ALARM Robotics presented the Volunteer of the Season Award to Franklin resident Tom Kroon - Founder and Head Coach of Sense and Sound Robotics from Franklin, Mass.

 “At the event, we gave out a Volunteer of the Season award to Tom Kroon, founding mentor of Sense and Sound Robotics, who is also a resident of Franklin,” says ALARM mentor Pallavi Naravane, who explains that Sense and Sound was founded in 2017 and teaches children free of cost. “Many of his alumni have gone onto STEM programs in college,” she explains.

Naravane notes that Mr. Green was an important mentor to the team, “deeply invested in  bringing robotics to students and in knowing the value of teaching technology to young kids.”

The ALARM Robotics team invited 12 younger FLL Explore teams from Rhode Island and Massachusetts to SFLLEE to showcase their builds and code at the event at the John F. Kennedy Memorial Middle School in Franklin. 

This year, the teen members of ALARM Robotics taught five FIRST LEGO League Explore teams, and one Discover Class at the Plainville Library for 13 weeks from Oct-Jan completely free of cost and reached 50 students who wouldn’t otherwise have had the opportunity to do robotics, according to Naravane. The team has put in 700 volunteer hours with 17 engineering workshops at seven local libraries, and it has reached close to 10,000 people.

“We’re getting kids to stick around the robotics season year after year,” says Naravane, who explains that team members are gaining leadership skills from coaching younger grades.