Starting a nonprofit to help lower-income children, doubling the number of students it serves and expanding it to the East Coast– all within two years — would seem like the feat of a lifetime for most.
But for Maximilian Goetz, that’s just a high school accomplishment.
Goetz, a junior at Palo Alto’s Henry M. Gunn High School, says none of it would have been possible without the help of dozens of his high school classmates and friends.
“I really believe it takes a village to raise a child and it takes a village to raise an organization,” Goetz said in a recent interview.
When he founded Robotics for All in April 2017, it was a single after-school program at Mountain View’s Mariano Castro Elementary School whose purpose was to give low-income students access to STEM education for free — regardless of socioeconomic status.
After seeing the students accept their awards at the end of the class and feeling an immense sense of accomplishment, Goetz and his friends decided to turn their high school project into a registered nonprofit organization.
It just seemed like a “natural next step” to help legitimize their organization, attract larger donations and keep expanding the program, they said.
“Robotics for All really shifted from a high school project carried out at an elementary school to a national vision of really trying to make a dent in the achievement gap, and that’s been really inspirational to me,” Sylvana Domokos, a junior at Gunn and the board adviser for Robotics for All, said in an interview.
On a recent Monday afternoon at Gabriela Mistral Elementary School, one could see that impact firsthand.
Morgan Mecklenborg, a first-grade student, and a dozen of her schoolmates crowded around a table and watched as the robots they had spent weeks building faced off against one another in a final competition.
When her team’s robot beat its last competitor, Morgan threw her arms into the air and let out a big squeal.
“We’ve basically won every time we’ve done a competition,” she said after the win. “It’s because the teachers we have are really good.”
The teachers Morgan is talking about aren’t your average teachers by any means.
In fact, just two hours earlier most of them finished classes at Gunn High School, hopped on their bikes and rode 20 minutes to the elementary campus in Mountain View.
From its seven-member board to its more than 25 volunteer “teachers,” Robotics for All is fully run by high school students who do everything from create and teach the curriculum to organize fundraising campaigns to hold board meetings.
When asked how they learned the ins and outs of running a nonprofit, they admit it’s been a learning curve that has required spending a lot of time on Google and various legal websites.
“It wasn’t an easy process, but I think that is what has made it more rewarding,” Goetz said.
The nonprofit has two main goals — bringing robotics classes to undeserved elementary students whose families otherwise couldn’t afford them while simultaneously providing opportunities for high school students to give back to their communities.
The nonprofit’s robotics classes are group-based, with high school volunteers teaching a group of about three to four students. The after-school classes, which take place over seven weeks, teach the elementary students how to build robots with a series of Legos and use a laptop program to control their robots’ actions and complete various challenges.
“We think giving the students the opportunity to learn even the very basics is important, because if it’s something they want to pursue, then they’ll know about it and be a step ahead,” Garrett Tieng, the nonprofit’s vice president, said in an interview.
Although robotics programs are not a rarity in Silicon Valley, a program that is run by teens and doesn’t cost schools or students a dime is.
“There are many options like this, but they all cost money,” Sam Connell, co-director of after-school programs at Gabriela Mistral, said in a recent interview. “And the benefit of having high school students doing it is that the kids can get this idea that ‘Oh, I can be like Max.’ ”
Since its founding two years ago, the nonprofit’s program has expanded to four schools — two in Mountain View, one in Sunnyvale and another in Framingham, Mass., where a family friend of Goetz started his own franchise of the program.
Next year, the teenagers hope to double their impact by expanding their after-school programs to at least four more schools in Sunnyvale, San Jose and East Palo Alto — and possibly another state. But securing additional funding will be essential to achieving that goal.
Goetz and the other board members have worked with friends, family members and other connections within their Robotics circles to reach out to school leaders and find those who are interested in starting a Robotics for All program at their school.
Launching a new program costs about $1,800 when taking into account the purchase of laptops, the Lego Mindstorms kits and various other materials. With the nonprofit’s expansion plans for next school year, the teens have a goal of fundraising $20,000 this summer.
Aiming to prove to investors that they should be taken seriously — even as teenagers — the nonprofit’s board last month voted to create two executive staff positions for Goetz and Tieng. But both students decided they will not be keeping the salaries.
“I was astounded to hear that Max and Garrett — two teenagers who have the offer of a paycheck every month — are turning it down and putting it back into the organization,” Domokos said. “It’s actually incredible to me.”
But the teenagers’ sights are set far higher than next school year’s expansion.
Their ultimate goal, according to Goetz and his fellow board members, is to give anyone across the country the ability to start a Robotics for All program at a low-income school near them.
“Our vision is to be in every low-income community across the country,” Goetz said. “That is our goal and we are going to achieve that.”
For more information about Robotics For All or to make an online donation to the nonprofit organization, visit www.roboticsforalleducation.com.
