In a typical year, several robotics teams from the Los Altos community compete in national and international Botball tournaments. This year, however, only one local team of high school students took on the national challenge – and it won.
At a coffeehouse-style open mic night for teens last month, the performers appeared to one another as tiles and the audience was invisible but present, an idea of neighbors at their screens around the region.
The Assistance League of Los Altos recently donated $10,000 to the Foothill-De Anza Foundation to help low-income students in Santa Clara County.
Living in Silicon Valley, it may be difficult to imagine not having access to computers, coding and robotics. However, that is the reality for many high schoolers in the Bay Area – one that a UC Berkeley-based nonprofit with a local high school graduate on its board aims to change.
Graham Middle School students Aria Rani Sindledecker and Anika Raman recently received recognition from C-SPAN for their submissions to its StudentCam competition, which invites middle and high schoolers throughout the nation to enter a short documentary.
“I wasn’t really expecting anything, so when I found out, it was a little unbelievable,” said Aria, a seventh-grader from Mountain View.
For one local middle school student, helping others has taught him valuable lessons about volunteerism and appreciating what you have.
