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Dear Robotics for All Community: With the 2020-2021 school year well underway at schools across the country, last week we successfully started our fall classes. Combined with our second round of fall classes starting in the beginning of October, we will have 200 students this fall. Earlier this month, we hosted a virtual volunteer celebration party for our 80+ volunteers who helped make our online classes a success. Below is a photo of that event.  10 of our volunteers also earned the President’s Volunteer Service Award and we will be honoring them in a virtual awards ceremony next month. We owe our success to our volunteers, as our day-to-day operations are only possible through their dedication and passion. Our volunteers are not only involved in teaching; they are involved in all aspects of our company. Just to name a few, we have curriculum development volunteers, business development interns, and outreach volunteers.
As we look toward the next steps, we continue to diversify our offerings by making new curricula. In Winter 2020, we will have the following new curricula: HTML/CSS, Basic Scratch (K-3rd) Part 2, Java, and Advanced Python. We thank you for your continued support of our mission. Sincerely, Max
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August Monthly Update: Transition to School Year Classes, New Tutoring and Mentorship Services8/26/2020 Dear Robotics for All Community:
Despite the disasters across the country, including the pandemic, economic recession, and raging fires in our home state of California, at Robotics for All we remain optimistic and full of hope for the future. Lately, we have been working hard on what we do best: tackling the opportunity gap that has been exacerbated by the pandemic. Next month marks the transition from our summer classes to our school year classes. We are proud of our dozens of volunteers who made our summer classes a success. So many things need to be in place for online classes to happen, including having an effective curriculum, sufficient students and volunteers, and actually teaching in our virtual classrooms. Our volunteers were the first to try out the new curriculum and an entire new format of classes. Needless to say, they exceeded our expectations. An overwhelming majority of parents who took a mid-session survey said that they would enthusiastically recommend our classes to other parents. As with any new curriculum, there is always room for improvement and we are working hard to implement the feedback that we received. In this upcoming school year, we are excited to not only continue our online classes that will be open to everyone, but also to partner with schools in low-income areas to offer classes exclusively for their students. The schools span the entire country, from the Los Angeles Area all the way to Massachusetts! Our goal with these partnerships is to make sure that we are serving the populations who need our classes the most. We are also looking forward to implementing two brand new services this year: a free, on-demand tutoring service for K-12 students and a mentorship program for high school students. You can find out more about the tutoring service here on our website: https://www.roboticsforall.net/tutoring.html. Detailed information about our mentorship program on our website will be published at a later date. I would like to end by borrowing words from Representative John Lewis, a civil rights leader and congressman of over 30 years who passed away last month: “Be hopeful. Be optimistic. Never lose that sense of hope.” In times like these, those words are more important than ever. As we head into the next school year, I remain inspired by our volunteers who work passionately to bring about positive change in the world. Best Regards, Maximilian Goetz, on behalf of the Robotics for All Board of Directors Maximilian Goetz Founder and CEO max@roboticsforall.net Garrett Tieng Vice President and COO garrett@roboticsforall.net Dear Robotics for All Community:
With roughly 250 K-8th grade students now enrolled in our online classes, we cannot begin to put into words how incredibly proud we are of our volunteers for building such a program. When the pandemic hit a little over four months ago, we thought it would be a short term problem. It wasn’t, and it soon became apparent that the opportunity gap that Robotics for All is dedicated to solving would only widen. To this end, we quickly turned around, brought on new summer volunteers to help us create a series of comprehensive, online-only curricula serving K through 8th graders. These curricula include Fundamentals of Programming for K-3rd, Scratch, Python, and CAD. For the first time, we were able to teach Kindergarteners and Middle Schoolers. In the past three weeks, our volunteers started teaching our classes. Despite some minor technical difficulties, the rollout of our online classes was a resounding success. To the 70+ volunteers who helped with teaching, publicizing classes, coordinating classes, and/or making the curriculum, we wish there was a better word than “thank you” to express how incredibly grateful we are for your dedication and commitment to our mission. We have gone so far and made so much progress, and we are certainly not stopping here. As we plan to expand our program to include more students and work directly with schools in low income communities, we are actively creating more curricula to increase our offering of classes. Next fall, we are also rolling out two exciting new programs: a free online on-demand tutoring service for low income communities and a mentorship program for high schoolers to best prepare them for post-high school success. We have also secured agreements with several schools for online classes, including the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative's The Primary School in the San Francisco Bay Area. The pandemic has fundamentally changed our strategy to carrying out our mission, but it has changed it for the better. Never have we imagined that we would have an online platform, but now online classes are at the core of our business model. The benefits are limitless -- from enabling volunteers to teach from anywhere to students anywhere, online teaching enables us to reach more students than ever before possible. While we plan on continuing our in-person classes after the pandemic is over, our online classes will remain. We must not forget the many millions of lives that have been upended by this pandemic. While one organization cannot solve all problems caused by the pandemic, we are incredibly proud that our volunteers are stepping up to the plate, and doing their part to level the opportunity gap. We can not wait to see what the next month will bring us! Best Regards, Maximilian Goetz, on behalf of the Robotics for All Board of Directors Maximilian Goetz Founder and CEO max@roboticsforall.net Garrett Tieng Vice President and COO garrett@roboticsforall.net Dear Robotics for All Community,
As an organization whose mission is to create equal educational opportunities for everyone, we are deeply disturbed by recent events such as the killing of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery. While racial oppression has long existed in this world, these events have shed light on the underlying differences in the ways people are treated, just based on the color of their skin. This is in an issue that is not mutually exclusive to police oppression. To just state a few examples, across the country and all over the world, one’s race can determine how one is treated by others, how easy it is able to climb the social ladder, and how much access one has to quality education. No organization can single handedly solve all the issues related to racial oppression, but at Robotics for All, we are committed to ensuring that everyone has access to quality STEM education, regardless of their racial background, the zip code they are born into, the income of their parents or the gender they identify with. If the pandemic has taught us anything, it is that the future is online. Without access to quality STEM classes, socioeconomically disadvantaged students cannot compete with their more affluent and privileged peers. The pandemic has only worsened with the opportunity gap, as many students from low income communities lack sufficient resources to adequately distance learn. That is why we have decided to stop waiting for the pandemic to end and transition our learning platform to an entirely online platform. To help with this massive undertaking, this past month we interviewed over two dozen applicants for our summer volunteer position. Along with two mentors with over 30 years of experience in their respective fields of teaching and software development, we selected nine volunteers representing two countries and seven states. Combined with our existing board and internal volunteers, we now have over twenty volunteers working on initiatives like developing curriculum, creating web platforms, improving our internal procedures, coordinating our online classes, and improving our in-person classes for when they are able to resume. We expect to begin online classes in July, which will be open to everyone with an optional donation for those who can afford to donate. When school resumes in August, we will roll out our online classes to students all over this nation. The benefit of online classes is that we are not limited by location; we can have volunteers from anywhere in the world teaching students anywhere in the world. This enables us to serve communities we have never been able to serve before, including rural communities whose students are often left behind. The passion and energy that our volunteers and mentors have for our mission was clearly demonstrated in the many video call meetings we have had this week. We are truly lucky to have such a dedicated team of volunteers and are grateful for all of their time. Together, we are taking steps to permanently close this gap and ensure that no matter where a student comes from, they can have access to quality STEM instruction. Whether you are a mentor, donor, or volunteer, we remain grateful for your unwavering support of our mission and our day-to-day operations, particularly through these difficult times. Respectfully, Max and Garrett Maximilian Goetz Founder and CEO max@roboticsforall.net Garrett Tieng Vice President and COO garrett@roboticsforall.net Dear Robotics for All Community,
As we enter the third month of shelter-in-place, it is becoming evident to us that the impact of the pandemic will be a long-term one. At the start of the outbreak, resuming our classes at the beginning of the next school year seemed like it would be the worst case scenario. However, it is becoming increasingly likely that our classes will resume at a much later date. As student collaboration is a cornerstone of our curriculum, we will be unable to resume classes if social distancing measures in the classroom are required. Due to the lasting extent of the outbreak, we are in the process of brainstorming ideas for online-remote instruction. Low-income communities are particularly impacted by shelter-in-place and we are committed to finding an alternative form of instruction that is online focused. Technology will not be a barrier as most schools are issuing laptops and many internet companies are providing free or reduced cost internet to low income communities. While online instruction will never replace the in class experience, in situations like this one they are the best we can do while complying with social distancing measures. By next month’s update, we should have decided on how we are going to run online classes and which platform we will use. In the long run even after a vaccine for the virus is distributed, online classes can still be useful in rural communities and for instruction outside of school hours. In-classroom curriculum wise, we recently finished the development of the 14 day Lego Robotics Curriculum, which will replace our Programming Fundamentals and Creative Automation curricula. Our Early Builders Curriculum (our improved version of our Experimental Builders Curriculum) and our brand new Arduino Explorers Curriculum for middle schoolers are also close to completion. Next month, June, is an annually big month of transition for Robotics for All. June 30th is the end of our accounting year (we purposefully chose this date to align with the end of the school year). It is when some leadership members will step down or leave entirely and when we will be welcoming new leadership members. In this month’s update, we will be honoring leadership members who will be stepping down or leaving entirely and in next month’s update, we will formally introduce our new leadership members. Leaving Board Members/Board Members Stepping Down from Positions Cathy Hou: Cathy is an incoming freshman at Stanford University and joined Robotics for All in January 2018 as one of our first volunteer teachers, even before we became a registered 501 (c)(3) nonprofit organization. Since then, she has volunteered at several locations. After we incorporated as a nonprofit in October 2018, Cathy became treasurer on our inaugural Board of Directors. In her tenure as treasurer, Cathy formalized our volunteer donor receipt process and helped Robotics for All earn several grants. At the end of June, Cathy will be leaving Robotics for All’s board entirely. We wish Cathy all the best in her future educational and professional career and thank her for her invaluable contributions to Robotics for All. Jaimie Lin: Jaimie is an incoming freshman at Washington University, St. Louis. She will step down from her position as Director of Publicity and Recruitment (a position she has held since our board was inaugurated in October 2018), but we are honored that she has chosen to remain as a board member. As Director of Publicity and Recruitment, Jaimie led our publicity committee. She oversaw the redesign of our logo, the creation of countless publicity materials, and the improvement of our website functionality. Jaimie has also been a volunteer teacher since September 2018. While she will no longer lead our publicity avenues, Jaimie will continue to advise Robotics for All as a board member. New Board Members Edmund Lam: Edmund is an incoming senior at Henry M. Gunn High School. He joined Robotics for All as a volunteer teacher in February 2019 and was officially voted in as a board member in March 2020. Edmund will assume the position of Director of Operations, Silicon Valley in July 2020. In the meantime, Edmund has been one of the developers of our Early Builders Curriculum and is leading the creation of our integrated web app. Kenneth Meng: Kenneth is also an incoming senior at Henry M. Gunn High School and started volunteering for Robotics for All in March 2019. He was voted in as a board member in March 2020. Kenneth is one of the developers of our Early Builders Curriculum and is assisting with the development of our integrated web app. Brooke Soobrian: Brooke is an incoming senior at Los Altos High School. She started volunteering in September 2019 and in December 2019 became one of our lead instructors. Brooke was voted onto Robotics for All’s board in March 2020 and will become our new Director of Publicity and Recruitment in July 2020. She is one of the developers of our Lego Robotics Curriculum. William Xuan: William is an incoming senior at Henry M. Gunn High School and was Robotics for All’s third volunteer teacher, starting at our second class ever in December 2017. He was promoted to Director of Operations, Silicon Valley in September 2019, a role in which he coordinated logistics for our classes and secured a grant from Lockheed Martin. William was voted onto Robotics for All’s board in May 2020. In July, he will become our new treasurer and hand off the position of Director of Operations, Silicon Valley to Edmund. We wish our leaving board members all the best in their future endeavors and we must thank them again for their years of service. We are thrilled with our four new leadership members and we are confident that they will continue to ensure Robotics for All’s success throughout this next school year. In the meantime, we wish you all the best during these difficult times. Best Regards, Max and Garrett Maximilian Goetz Founder and CEO max@roboticsforall.net Garrett Tieng Vice President and COO garrett@roboticsforall.net Dear Robotics for All Community,
Please join us in wishing Robotics for All a very happy third anniversary! Three years ago, the idea of Robotics for All was born with an email to Principal Lambert of Castro Elementary School. In the years that have followed, we made tremendous progress toward our mission of closing the opportunity gap by providing free after school robotics classes to students in low-income communities. In our first year of operations, we taught a mere 24 students. The following year, we taught 143 students. This past year, we taught a staggering 377 students. As it stands, our summer classes will be canceled, but we are eager to return to teaching in the fall or whenever it is safe to do so. While the pandemic is dampening our short term growth, the progress we are making on multiple fronts during this time is certainly going to accelerate our growth when we are able to resume classes. This past month our volunteers have collectively donated hundreds of hours at home working on several initiatives.
This pandemic is tough on everyone and we express our greatest appreciation to everyone doing their part in stopping the spread of the virus. We will get through this together and come out stronger. When we are able to resume our classes, the work that our volunteers have been putting in these past two months will undoubtedly pay off both in the quality of our instruction and the pace of our growth. But for now, let’s take a moment to celebrate all we have accomplished in the past three years. Whether you contributed as a donor, volunteer, or mentor, thank you. This could not have been done without you. Together, we are taking steps to tackle the opportunity gap and we cannot wait to see what the next three years will bring us. Happy third anniversary, Robotics for All! Max and Garrett Maximilian Goetz Founder and CEO max@roboticsforall.net Garrett Tieng Vice President and COO garrrett@roboticsforall.net Saturday, April 18th, 2020
Dear Robotics for All Community: We hope everyone is staying safe and healthy during these difficult times. As schools across the country are closing through the end of the school year, Robotics for All is monitoring the situation at hand. We remain committed to keeping the safety of our volunteers and students our paramount priority in all the decisions we make. As a result, Robotics for All will be cancelling all classes through the end of the 2019-2020 school year. Unfortunately, that means that sessions that started before the shutdown will not resume. According to most mathematical models, we anticipate being able to resume classes at the start of the 2020-2021 school year. We are following all the latest advice from experts and we will adjust that date pending the situation. When we resume classes, we will follow all recommended health protocol in the classroom, included but not limited to sanitization and distancing. Unfortunately, it remains highly unlikely that we will have robotics classes this summer. Our final deadline to make that decision is April 30th, 2020, but at this point I highly doubt that the information we have right now will be any different them. It takes at least one month to coordinate the logistics for summer classes, so that is why April 30th is the latest we can start the planning process. I understand how disappointing this news may be to our volunteers and students. However, we greatly appreciate your understanding as we do our very best to make the best decisions for our volunteers, students, and the communities in which we serve. We will get through this together, and in the meantime, please stay safe. Sincerely, Max Maximilian Goetz Founder and CEO of Robotics for All max@roboticsforalleducation.com (650) 665-9734 Dear Robotics for All Community,
While our classes have unfortunately been suspended, behind the scenes our team is working hard on major improvements to Robotics for All. We are personally inspired by everyone’s adaptability and dedication to Robotics for All. As we have witnessed from the countless Zoom meetings we have had, our volunteers are using this period of self isolation to help Robotics for All give back to the community more effectively than ever before. Over the past two weeks, our volunteers have collectively donated dozens of hours on several key initiatives, and we have some exciting new updates to share with you: 1. Brand New Curriculum We currently have three levels of curriculum for 1st-5th graders: Experimental Building, Programming Fundamentals, and Creative Automation. Our curriculum has served us well in our three years of operation, but we too have learned so much and there is definitely room for improvement. We are pleased to announce that our elementary school curriculum will be streamlined into two curriculums: Early Builders and LEGO Robotics. Each new curriculum is being designed for seven weekly classes, with a further seven week extension for students who re-enroll. These new curriculums incorporate many elements from our old curriculum, but they have a greater focus on experiential learning versus direct instruction. We believe that our curriculum should be just as much fun as it is educational. 2. Online Tutorials Videos We are in the process of making online tutorial videos for all of our curriculum. Of all the things that this COVID-19 outbreak has taught us, one thing is that online learning is part of the future of learning. These online tutorial videos will not replace our in-person classes, but they are a step forward to our goal of building a full digital classroom for our students, of which there are many benefits. For example, if we are to expand to rural communities, there may not be a source of volunteers nearby. These videos can also be used in class to help students who need help understanding a concept. If you are curious, we invite you to check out one of our online videos at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1TXtXO2MTE. 3. Middle School Curriculum It has been a longtime goal of ours to expand to middle school and we are now in the beginning stages of developing a curriculum. The curriculum is based off of mBots, a tested educational platform for learning robotics. We plan to start middle school classes as soon as logistically possible, hopefully by the fall of 2020 if not early 2021. 4. Reduced Ratio of Student to Laptops and Robotics Kits Currently our ratio of students to laptops and robotics kits is about 4 to 1. This could be improved to give students more interaction with the laptop and robots. In the past we have prioritized our resources on expansion, but we have decided this time to focus on improving the quality of our instruction. Starting next school year, all our classes will feature one laptop and robotics kit to every two students, a ratio that even the most expensive for-profit robotics enrichment programs have. 5. Writing New Grants and Reducing Costs The months and years ahead of us are unpredictable, and as an organization that relies on donations, a potential economic recession is no good news for us. Fortunately we had a successful winter fundraising season, but future expansion will be dependent on whether we are able to receive more donations. We are also reducing our costs by transitioning our 1st-3rd grade classes from the LEGO Mindstorms Platform to a platform that is a quarter of the cost but just as effective. While these times are definitely tough on everyone, we are proud that Robotics for All and our volunteers are making effective use of this troubling time. We are confident that once the world wins its fight against this virus, we will come back stronger and better prepared than ever before. We extend our appreciation to our volunteers who are graciously donating their time at home to making these improvements possible. In the meantime, we wish the Robotics for All community all the best health and safety as we win the fight against this pandemic together. Best Regards, Max and Garrett Maximilian Goetz Founder and CEO max@roboticsforall.net Garrett Tieng Vice President and COO garrett@roboticsforall.net Friday, March 13th, 2020
Dear Robotics for All Community: At Robotics for All, the health and safety of our students and volunteers is our top priority. In response to the rapidly changing circumstances of the Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) and many schools across the country closing, Robotics for All will be immediately suspending all classes. We will not be starting any new sessions for the remainder of the 2019-2020 school year. Due to the unpredictability of the virus, the date when we resume in-progress sessions is still to be determined, and there is a possibility that they will be cancelled indefinitely. Furthermore, Robotics for All will not move forward with planning summer classes until an end to the virus outbreak is in sight. Some mathematical models show the virus going well into the summer, so there may not even be any classes this summer. Until further notice, all Robotics for All related meetings, including board meetings, will be held online. To help facilitate these online meetings, Robotics for All has purchased a Zoom pro plan, which will be used for all meetings. In the meantime, we wish the Robotics for All Community all the best during this difficult time. When we have further updates, they will be published onto this page. Sincerely, Max Maximilian Goetz Founder and CEO of Robotics for All max@roboticsforalleducation.com (650) 665-9734 Tuesday, March 10th, 2020
Dear Robotics for All Volunteers: In the past few days, there have been many updates from educational institutions, governmental organizations, and other entities regarding the recent Coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak in the United States and many other countries. At Robotics for All, we are taking the situation very seriously as our top concern is the safety of our volunteers and students. As an entity unaffiliated with any parent organization or institution, we take the responsibility to make the right decisions very seriously. For the time being, as school is not cancelled, we do not see the need to cancel any Robotics for All classes and will proceed as usual. Schools consult many health professionals when making their decisions and as such we believe it is best to follow their practices. If schools start to cancel classes, we will also cancel all of our after school classes. We will send another update if we get to that point. During our classes, we recommend following the practices outlined below:
We will continue to keep you updated, but in the meantime wish you, your family, and your friends all the best during this difficult time. Sincerely, Max Maximilian Goetz Founder and CEO, Robotics for All, Inc. max@roboticsforalleducation.com (650) 665-9734 |
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