Drone Racing! STEM Applications

Meeting for the week of August 03 - August 09, 2020

This Meeting at a Glance:

Program: Drone Racing! STEM Applications

Speaker: Caleb LaPlante

Is this your first time to visit us? If so, welcome to our weekly online meeting! To complete our meeting, please continue reading from here to the bottom of this page.Each Monday our week’s meeting is posted early in the morning, U.S. Pacific Time. These meetings are designed so that you can read and watch what we post anytime during the week. The entire meeting takes about 60 minutes to complete, with the video conference recording of the program being the bulk of the time.Note that you can easily read this meeting with your favorite device, so feel free to take our meeting on the go with you. Please also make sure to complete the attendance form at the bottom and leave a comment. Enjoy!

To properly attend this meeting, please:

  1. Read and watch the content below in its entirety.

  2. Complete the attendance survey.

Everyone is also encouraged to leave a comment in the Disqus section at the bottom of the page.


Welcome to the Rotary eClub of Silicon Valley!

  • Here’s a message from President Raquel:

President Raquel


Guests, we are happy to have you join us this week!

As we see it, our flexibility as an online, asynchronous club allows a special type of service to Rotarians around the world: we make it easier for anyone to strive for and maintain 100% attendance. That keeps you engaged with Rotary's events and ideas, and provides a moment of inspiration for devoting your creativity, talents, and resources to good causes.

You are certainly not required to pay anything in order to attend our meetings. However, if you would like to make a small contribution to our service efforts, you are welcome to do so in our secure Happy Dollars section down the page. This could be what you normally pay at your own club's meetings for lunch, for example. Any amount is welcome, but first and foremost, we're happy you've joined us, and hope you will share with others who we are and what we do to help inspire Service Above Self.

And don't forget to fill out our attendance form so you get an email you can pass on to your club's secretary!


The Four Way Test

The Four-Way Test is a nonpartisan and nonsectarian ethical guide for Rotarians to use for their personal and professional relationships.

Of the things we think, say or do

  1. Is it the TRUTH?

  2. Is it FAIR to all concerned?

  3. Will it build GOODWILL and BETTER FRIENDSHIPS?

  4. Will it be BENEFICIAL to all concerned?


Weekly Inspiration

Every week we start our meetings with a short video highlighting innovation, inspiration, entrepreneurship, or social change.

The Dinghy Derby is one of the world’s craziest boat races. Held in Riverland, Australia, racers zip through narrow creeks full of obstacles like overhanging trees and submerged logs. You likely don’t picture a dinghy when you think of a race boat. But these little aluminum boats have been transformed into speed machines with 90 horsepower motors. Dinghy racer Amanda Williamson tells us about the humble origins of the extreme sport and takes us on a wild ride.



Through a Rotarian's Lens

Sometimes a photo can capture an amazing moment. In this section Member Keith Marsh shares his incredible photography!

If you'd like to submit a photo for this section please contact Keith.

For this photo of the Comet Neowise, I drove to Lake Berryessa in Napa County to get away from the light pollution of the Bay Area and to be assured of clear skies. On July 25th, the comet moved closer to the Big Dipper so I included both in the same image.


Learn Something New

This section is curated by members Shags Shagrin and aims to teach our members and guests something new, fun and useful! If you have any ideas on a fun trick or skill you'd like to share please contact Shags.

8 Amazing Watermelon Ideas

It's watermelon season!!! I love it cold, grilled, in salads with some tomato & basil & balsamic vinegar, and I use the thicker rinds (peeled) to make pickles! Here are some other ideas for you. I'd start with seedless ones to save even more time. Note the disclaimer!


Service Report

Tell us about service you’ve done recently in your community.

Click here to fill out The Rotary eClub of Silicon Valley Service Survey

On the first meeting of every month, we feature service reports from club members for the previous month. Thanks for your service everyone!


Club Announcements


Our Events & Projects

We hold our meetings online, but we do regular service projects and social events in the Silicon Valley! This section is updated every week with our upcoming events. We welcome guests to all of the events and service projects listed here.

Past Events:

Upcoming Events:

All times are Pacific Time! (San Francisco time)

District 5170 Events

All times are Pacific Time! (San Francisco time)

More events coming soon! All events are open to guests, unless otherwise mentioned. Feel free to join us! If you ever have questions, please email inquiries@siliconvalleyrotary.com


Happy Dollars: Do Good by Sharing Something Good

Each week we ask our members to share stories with the club and toss in a few dollars to support our efforts. The primary goal of this section is to provide a fun way of getting to know each fellow members and guests, while giving back to a good cause.

Happy dollars is an opportunity to share something positive that has happened in your life whether it is personal or business. Think of it as your opportunity to brag a little, but also put a little bit into a karma jar. The money donated through happy dollars is put to charitable use, and the message that you leave for happy dollars will be posted in our online meeting the following week for the entire week for folks to see! (Pending that it’s appropriate!)

Here are the happy dollars contributions from last week!

This section is usually updated on the early hours of Saturday, so contributions made over the weekend may not be listed here.

Monique Ziesenhenne made a $25 donation.
So happy to be here! Evidently, I didn't attend last week, though in my mind, I thought I had...must have been the copy of The Rotarian that I read! Please contribute to Club General Fund.

Rory Olsen made a $20 donation.
We've made up for the drought with rain in some quantity everyday. My cats are spending lots of time with me to get over the rain.

Felix Pretscheck made a $20 donation.
Holidays ahead! ;-) Please apply my donation to a club project.

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Selected Comments

Every week at the bottom of our meetings, there is a comments section for members and guests to tell us what they enjoyed about the meeting or to ask questions to the speaker. We select a few comments every week from last week’s meeting to be featured during this week’s meeting.

Here are the comments selected from last week’s meeting.

Tanya Martin said:

I get something out of all the presentations, but this one was definitely a game-changer. You have to look at your loses as opportunities and look to make opportunities out of situations and information. You always have to be alert and continuous send vibes out to the universe.

J. Perez said:

This was my first Rotary meeting. (Thanks, Rushton!) Christian Busch's presentation on serendipity lit up my brain! I bought a Kindle copy of his book, read the intro and learned about the car accident that was one of his triggers. Looking forward to learning more from Christian's The Serendipity Mindset and from the Rotary Club. (I didn't know you helped people become better cooks!) Thanks for providing an enlightening evening!

Felix P said:

This was really inspiring! I was not familiar with this concept before, and I liked the kind of structured approach to creating opportunities and the positive expectation towards the unexpected. I suppose this is worth taking a second look outside the meeting. Thanks for inviting Christian as a speaker!

Be sure to leave a comment at the end of this week’s meeting after you watch the program below, and perhaps you’ll see your comment featured next week!


Program: Drone Racing! STEM Applications

Speaker: Caleb LaPlante

Every week we bring to you a new program on innovation, entrepreneurship, and education, and how those contribute to service to others. Special thanks to member Roger Plested for leading our club's Programs Committee in finding us amazing speakers each week.

The Rotary eClub of Silicon Valley seeks to explore perspectives on service from across the world. The views of the speakers in our programs are their own, and unless stated otherwise, are not necessarily reflective of the views of our eClub nor Rotary International.

If you have an idea for a cool speaker, please feel free to reach out to them directly or submit THIS FORM so our Program Committee can contact them!

Professional drone racing is broadcast on TV and Twitter. But few viewers really know how it works or how to get involved and grow the sport. Caleb LaPlante is no expert (he's not even a drone racing pilot himself) but he has pioneered a student-based drone racing league in his local area while working under the non-profit organization Southern Oregon Air Academy. He'll share his experiences and what he's learned about the value of the sport for youth through exposure to possibilities with STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math).

Caleb LaPlante is the founder of Southern Oregon Air Academy, a nonprofit organization introducing students to aviation and aerospace careers. Caleb was also most recently the Director of Unmanned programs and pioneered the organization's launch of their Drone Racing League for middle and high school students. Members and guests, welcome Rotary eClub of Silicon Valley member Caleb LaPlante!

Additional Resources

https://bit.ly/2Zuu3pS


Upcoming Program Recording Schedule

All of our guest speakers and programs are recorded live online over Zoom video conference. We welcome members and guests to join us in one of these upcoming recordings. Recordings are approximately 30 minutes long and are subject to change without notice.

Our online video conference room link for these recordings is always http://zoom.siliconvalleyrotary.com/. You are welcome to join us! Please note the timezone listed for all recordings is US Pacific Time (San Francisco, California, USA).

If you can’t join the live recording, please send your questions for an upcoming speaker to programs@siliconvalleyrotary.com.


You’re Almost Done! Please complete The Attendance Survey…

Thanks for reading and watching this week’s meeting. You have two last things to do before you’re done.

We have a very short attendance survey below for you to fill out to record your attendance.

Visiting Rotarians, this is how you can get an email receipt to pass along to your club’s secretary as proof that you’ve attended our meeting if you need it for makeups.

Non-Rotarian Guests, we would love to see who is dropping by our meetings! This part is optional for you. If you think you may want to join our eClub at some point in the future, we would strongly recommend you fill out the attendance form as it will improve your chances of success for your membership application.

For all members and guests — we strongly recommend and ask that you leave a comment in our comments area below. Tell us how you enjoyed the program. Ask this week’s speaker any questions you might have. Or just stop by and say hello and tell us where you’re from!

Important: Once you submit the Attendance Survey below, please make sure you see the confirmation message. If you get an error message instead, please try the 'submit' button again, and if that doesn't work, please refresh the page and fill out the form again. Thanks!

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The Afretech Aid Society and the ARES project

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Transforming Uncertainty into Opportunity: The Science of Serendipity as a Tool for Innovation and Impact in a Fast-Changing World