Feburary Updates:

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.
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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