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Happy February, everyone!
As we continue to see improvements in virus case rates across the country and the vaccine rollout continues, we are gearing up for the return of in-person classes. At this point, we are looking to return to in-person classes as early as Fall 2021. To prepare for this, we are refining our in-person curriculum and finding concentrated groups of volunteers in areas we expect will have in-person classes in the fall. Last month, we inaugurated Abhijay Edavalapati as our new club coordinator. Abhijay, together with his team of three sub-leaders (Narmeen Chahal, Dylan Epstein-Gross, and Jessica Fu), are going to create Robotics For All clubs at local high schools. The goal is to create stable pools of volunteers for in-person classes, all while providing an exciting club for high schoolers to join. We look forward to seeing the process they will make. There are also three exciting new initiatives we are pursuing: aerospace engineering classes, Onshape Curriculum, and science classes. We are partnering with Flight Club Aerospace to offer an intro to aerospace engineering class this spring. Onshape is a popular CAD software, and with our partnership with the Aragon High School Design Tech Club, we will be offering this class to students as early as summer 2021. For our science classes, we are exploring options to offer courses beyond what is taught in school. We are still in the preliminary planning stages of the program, but some courses may include astronomy, genetics, and ecology. SPRING ENROLLMENT IS OPEN NOW!! Code.org (K-1) Lego Explorers (K-1) Snap Circuits (2-5) Scratch (2-3) Scratch (4-6) Python (6-8) Enrollment closes March 5th. Last month, I selected two volunteers of the month who were long-time established volunteers who both held leadership sub-positions. This month, I have selected two newer volunteers who do not currently hold official leadership positions but have made extensive contributions worthy of recognition. Without further ado, please join me in congratulating the Volunteers of February: Dennis Eum and Aryan Shah. Dennis Eum is an intern who built Tutoring For All’s calendar scheduling software from scratch. Back in November when TFA was looking for a scheduling software, they were not able to find any solution that met all their needs. That was until Dennis offered to code one. His contribution cannot be understated. TFA would simply not be in the same place without him. His nominator described him as being, “incredibly receptive to feedback and implements our requests in an efficient and timely manner [and has] exceeded all of our expectations.” Thank you Dennis for your tireless work on the scheduler and congratulations on earning this well-deserved award. Aryan Shah joined Robotics For All just last month as an intern. He became involved in multiple areas of the organization and even received two nominations for this award in January, just two weeks after he joined. What I personally admire about Aryan is how he goes above and beyond. To provide just one example, two weeks ago he called Vex and other retailers to negotiate a discount for Vex kits. One nominator wrote that they, “have nothing but praise for Aryan” while another noted that, “he just brings a lot of energy into the organization.” From my personal experience with Aryan, I couldn’t agree more. Congratulations Aryan, and thank you for your dedication. That’s all for this month! Please continue to be safe and be well! Best Regards, Max
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Happy new year and welcome to 2021! We have over 700 students who will be starting classes with us this month through direct enrollment and partnerships with 14 schools. This is almost triple our previous record of 250 students. We are so excited for what this year will bring us, both through Robotics for All’s main services, and those provided by partner organizations Tutoring for All, Mentoring for All, and Crafts for Charity. We have ambitious goals this year, but with our incredible team of board members, subposition leadership team members, and over 200 volunteers, we are confident we will surpass them!
Dear Robotics for All Community,
In spite of the many challenges this year, as an organization, we were able to make incredible progress toward our goal of bringing equitable education to students of all backgrounds. Together, we successfully transitioned the company from a small, local organization providing in-person classes to an international coalition of volunteers teaching students from all areas of this country. The virtual world has given us reach to so many more volunteers and students, enabling us to teach more students this past six months than in our entire previous three-year history, for a total of over 1000 students. The pandemic has been stressful for everyone, and we are proud to have been a positive light in the lives of our students and volunteers throughout this year. With the momentum our growing volunteer base of over 200 volunteers will carry into the new year, 2021 will surely be an exciting year for Robotics for All. In addition to growing our online STEM classes through partnerships with schools across the country, we plan on preparing for the resumption of our in-person classes, whenever that may be. We will also see the continued growth of our sponsored organizations Tutoring for All and Crafts for Charity; Mentoring for All’s services will also officially launch. Robotics for All is planning a virtual hackathon for April! Stay tuned for more details and announcements as we get closer to the event. Please whitelist max@roboticsforall.net to receive email updates from us. Thanks to everyone who donated on Giving Tuesday, the biggest single day of donations in our history. Make sure to set up a recurring donation over the holidays to make every month a Giving Tuesday! Donate Here Tutoring for All has officially begun its tutoring services! We have Algebra 1, Elementary/Middle School Math, and English tutors available to book a free session with now. We will have a complete launch of all 17 subjects we offer in early 2021. To book a session with a tutor, click here. See you all in 2021, Max from Robotics for All Dear Robotics for All Community:
As we approach Thanksgiving, a holiday about friends and family, I reflect on the incredible community of volunteers we have here at Robotics for All. With the pandemic and the shift to our online model, this year we have witnessed the rapid growth of our organization. Our family of volunteers has thus expanded from the roughly 30 volunteers we had in just a few states to a volunteer base that now includes 196 volunteers from dozens of states and many other countries. It’s incredible to me how closely our volunteers bond with each other, despite coming from so many diverse backgrounds and having never seen each other in person. In every interaction of volunteer that I witness, whether it is in our weekly Among Us game nights or in day-to-day meetings, I remain proud of the welcoming and supportive community that we have built both on a professional and personal level. Our volunteers deserve all the credit for the work we carry out on a day-to-day basis. From teaching our classes to cold-emailing principals, we would not be where we are today without our volunteers. This Thanksgiving, Robotics for All is grateful for each and every one of our 196 volunteers, and how each of them forms a unique part of our passionate community of volunteers. This month, we extend a special thanks to our two volunteers of the month: Emma Johnston and Gina McNeill. Emma Johnston is the new vice president of Mentoring for All, Robotics for All’s new branch that will provide mentoring services to students from underserved high schools. In her first month as Vice President of Mentoring for All, Emma has taken strong leadership in the program and is working hard to build its foundation. She displays exemplary work ethic and passion for Mentoring for All and the general mission of Robotics for All. Her nominator described her as having “gone above and beyond in her duties as Vice President” and “making sure everyone has an easy time following along with different tasks.” I look forward to seeing more of Emma’s contributions building Mentoring for All, and preparing for its successful launch next Spring! Congratulations to Emma! Gina McNeill has explored many aspects of Robotics for All and currently serves as a business development intern and a teacher’s assistant. As an intern, Gina successfully helped Robotics for All secure partnerships with several schools through cold emailing. Gina also recently secured a grant for Robotics for All from the Costco Foundation. As a teacher, Gina was described by her nominator as being “actively involved in Scratch classroom by explaining key concepts, making and working through demonstrations, and answering students’ questions.” We applaud Gina for her hard work and achievements in multiple areas of the organization. Upcoming Events Tuesday, November 24th, 4 pm - 6 pm PST: Friendsgiving Tuesday, December 1st: Giving Tuesday Sunday, December 6th, 5 pm - 6 pm PST: Regularly Scheduled Board Meeting Weekend of December 19th, time TBD: Winter Robotics for All Game Night Party Sunday, December 20th, 5 pm - 6 pm PST: Regularly Scheduled Board Meeting *Subject to change. I know this past month has been incredibly difficult for everyone. From a contentious election to a worsening pandemic, I hope that everyone is able to take some time off this week to enjoy time with your family and friends and do the activities that bring you the most joy. From the Robotics for All family to yours, Happy Thanksgiving! Best Regards, Max from Robotics for All Dear Robotics for All Community:
With the 2020-2021 school year now in full swing, we are teaching over 200 K-8 students this fall. Though we all continue to battle with Zoom fatigue, these classes have been running very smoothly. We are proud of the work of our volunteer teacher team in ensuring these classes are a success. This past month, we welcomed over 50 business development interns to our community of volunteers. These interns form the core of our day-to-day operations. Among many tasks some of their tasks include cold emailing, conducting interviews, creating outreach materials, writing grants, improving our curriculum, and helping with spreadsheets. We are truly grateful for each and every one of our interns and the hard work they put in each day. As we look forward to the next few months, we have some exciting new initiatives we are working on: 1. New Curriculum In time for our winter session, we are excited to introduce four new curricula to our course offerings: Java, Advanced Python, HTML/CSS (web design), and Scratch for K-3rd graders Part 2. Our volunteers have been working hard on developing these curricula, and we are truly excited to have students take these courses. 2. New Partnerships With the success of our cold emailing (thank you, business development interns), we are forging new partnerships with schools across the country, from California to Georgia. These schools include elementary, middle, and high schools. We are excited about these new partnerships, which will expand our reach and give more students from underserved communities direct access to our services. 3. Tutoring for All Led by Amari Butler (President of Tutoring for All) and Dilan Desir (Vice President of Tutoring for All), Tutoring for All will be a service that will provide on-demand tutoring services for middle and high school students. Particularly during COVID times, underserved students often need additional support, and we are confident that this service will help provide that. Amari and Dilan are in the process of finalizing logistics and interviewing tutors, and they expect this service to launch next month! 4. Mentoring for All Mentoring for All will provide cost-free mentorship services for underserved high school students navigating high school and the college admissions process. This service is being led by Aarushi Khandelwal (President of Mentoring for All) and Emma Johnston (Vice President of Mentoring or All). They expect their program to launch in May 2021. In the meantime, their teams are busy preparing materials to ensure a smooth and successful launch! 5. Crafts for Charity We are pleased to formally announce that we will be fiscally sponsoring another organization, Crafts for Charity. This organization’s mission is to empower volunteers to learn more about making crafts, then donating what they make to those in need. Crafts for Charity is founded by Victoria Tsai, one of our volunteers. We are incredibly supportive of their work and are grateful for our partnership. You can learn more about Crafts for Charity by visiting https://www.craftsforcharity.com/. Please join me in congratulating our new Director of Recruitment: Ben Wyler. This application process was the most competitive in company history and we applaud everyone who applied for taking the initiative to apply. Ben currently serves as a teacher for PBL Scratch, a curriculum developer, and an interviewer. He possesses strong communication skills and a clear vision for the company. He is the perfect fit for this position, which is also a board member position. Congratulations to Dilan Desir and Danielle Trinh, our first volunteers of the month! Every month going forward, we will choose two volunteers who went above and beyond that month, to help recognize their contributions! Dilan’s incredible passion for Robotics for All’s mission is shown through his commitment on so many fronts of the organization. Firstly, he is a passionate teacher, teaching four classes right now, more than anyone else. Secondly, together with Amari, he has put in a great amount of effort in spearheading our new Tutoring for All program. Dilan also is a member of our interview team, our curriculum development team, and other teams that would be too long to list because he simply does so much for the organization. He’s an incredibly approachable person who is a role model for others. Danielle exemplifies the values that we look for in a Robotics for All volunteer: passionate about our mission, diligent in her work, and incredibly kind and professional in her communication. Last month, she created a video on how to improve the efficiency of cold emailing. Every intern training going forward, Aarushi and I have shared Danielle’s video with new interns. This is just one example of the initiative that Danielle takes in our organization. She also works incredibly hard on our curriculum development teams and puts her 100% into everything she does. Danielle is also a great team player and someone who is extremely fun to work with. As we approach the holiday season, we wish you the best as we continue to adapt to this “new normal” way of life. Best Regards, Max 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 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 |
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Disclaimer: Robotics for All makes no claims, promises, or guarantees about the information provided in this website (or linked by it) and disclaims all liability for the contents of this web site and any provider mentioned in it, directly or indirectly.
Any person or entity that relies on such information does so at its own risk. Terms of Use.