Benjamin Tang – Xanadu For Young Dreamers

Summer MARS Robotics Camp at the Milpitas Teen Center

Benjamin Tang — Wed, 03 Sep 2025 21:14:19 +0000

This summer, XFYD hosted our Summer MARS (Milpitas Applied Robotics and Science) program at the Milpitas Teen Center, a five-day robotics camp designed to inspire and challenge young minds. With nearly 100 students from 1st through 7th grade in attendance, the week was filled with hands-on learning, creativity, and teamwork. This was a massive undertaking, raising over 20,000$ in revenue.

The MARS program introduced students to three major areas of STEM:

Mechanical Design: Students learned how to design 3D models in Onshape and brought their ideas to life with 3D printing. Many campers took home their very first printed creations.
Coding: Campers dove into the world of Python programming, using it to build their own interactive games. For many, this was their first experience turning lines of code into something playable.
Electronics: With breadboard circuits and motors, students discovered how electricity powers movement. Each camper built and took home a motor-powered robot.

Beyond technical skills, the camp emphasized collaboration and problem-solving. Students worked in teams, shared ideas, and encouraged each other through challenges. The energy and enthusiasm were evident every day, whether it was debugging code, watching a robot come to life, or celebrating the first successful print from the 3D printer.

Our mission at XFYD is to make STEM accessible, engaging, and fun for young learners. The success of this year’s MARS program shows how much curiosity and creativity thrive when students are allowed to explore science and technology in a supportive environment. We are incredibly proud of all the participants for their hard work and are grateful to the Milpitas Teen Center for hosting this program. Most importantly, we hope the skills and confidence gained during MARS will inspire students to keep pursuing their interests in robotics and beyond.

XFYD Summer Report – Law & Governance Class

Benjamin Tang — Wed, 06 Aug 2025 19:56:29 +0000

XFYD has recently concluded its Law and Governance class. This class is in line with XFYD’s mission of providing students integral skills and enrichment opportunities that schools simply do not teach. Our class is not just for students interested in law or politics — it’s civics that is integral for all American citizens to know.

This class was led by Jake McGill and Jonathan Rios. Jonathan has years of experience with studying the legal system, being a leader in Whitney’s Mock Trial Team. Through this experience, Jonathan has been able to compete in student-led court cases like a real attorney, study court cases and legal doctrines, and even shadow law offices and LA courthouses! Jonathan is one of the nation’s top competitors — his team once placed third out of over 200 competitors!

Jake McGill leads our government classes with years of experience. Being and AP United States History student and longtime student of politics and legislative processes in the past, Jake brings his deep political science insights to the class.

This class approached law and governance through hands-on interaction and participation. After all, law and democracy depend solely on the participation of the populace, so our teachers structured their lessons around having students participate in leadership processes as much as possible. At our very first governance class, students were even able to form their own government, vote amongst themselves for president, and pass laws! This was all a very informative process that Jake used to teach the concepts of veto, the two houses of Congress, and how politics and negotiations work on Capitol Hill.

When students learned Law, they similarly had a hands-on and interactive introduction to the diverse complexities of the legal system. Several of our students wanted to pursue a career in Law — Jonathan wowed their curiosities by exploring the diverse fields and subfields lawyers could focus on, such as tort law, employment law, and human rights law. Jonathan even led a project where students could mock the legal process, crafting a holistic introduction to the legal field.

XFYD Summer Classes Report – Environmental Science

Benjamin Tang — Wed, 06 Aug 2025 18:57:01 +0000

One of XFYD’s historic goals has been a commitment to expand STEM enrichment and education across the community. Our STEM classes are not intended to be supplementary curricular classes — instead, their purpose is to provide a broad background and strong foundation for students to explore STEM further. We aim to evoke curiosity and excitement in students, gearing them up for future learning and research in STEM.

This commitment to broad foundation-building STEM education is what pushed our XFYD Environmental Science class.This five-day Environmental Science class offered an engaging, interactive introduction to core environmental concepts for elementary and middle school students. Through a mix of multimedia, virtual activities, and reflective discussions, the program aimed to build foundational awareness of ecosystems, pollution, sustainability, and the importance of individual action.

Hands-on digital tools, like food chain simulations and recycling games, kept learning dynamic and participatory, while creative activities like recycled art drawing encouraged self-expression and environmental imagination. Each day focused on a central theme, beginning with what makes up our environment and culminating in a student-led pledge to the planet. Through organizing virtual scavenger hunts to exploring air quality issues, students were encouraged to connect global environmental issues to their own lives.

This class was led by Brendan Chen, a senior at Whitney High School and an AP Environmental Science student. He has been studying and researching ecology and environmental engineering for years, and he brings his expertise and insight to help students discover the core issues that our environment faces.

XFYD Summer Classes Report: Chess

Benjamin Tang — Wed, 06 Aug 2025 08:30:22 +0000

Throughout this summer, aside from partnering with the ABC Unified School District’s Migrant Ed program to tutor over 200 migrant children in Science and Engineering, XFYD has also held its own classes for its community. With over 11 tutors and teachers, XFYD led four diverse community classes both online and in-person. One of these landmark classes was our four-session Chess Class.

Chess has an old and hallowed history at XFYD, being one of our oldest classes. This comes from a long tradition of the XFYD Chess Division, which has, over three years, brought over 20 teachers to lead over fifteen chess classes online and in-person at local elementary schools, churches, and libraries. This is on top of our quarterly Chess Tournaments, each of which brings together 30+ competitors for an intense four-hour-long chess experience.

These classes and tournaments are enormously popular among parents. Our library classes carry long waitlists, and we’ve had up to fifty signups for our online classes! However, even this scale of success pales in comparison to what our XFYD branches are up to. Our Milpitas branch in the Bay Area once held a class with over 200 students on the chess waitlist! At XFYD, we know that chess is one of the most effective yet fun ways to develop students’ strategic thinking, logic, and discipline. Our chess teachers lead with experience, many having competed in United States Chess Federation-rated tournaments and national championships.

This latest chess class capped off our long-running chess program with a fun, yet rigorous chess training session. Led by veteran chess teachers Darsh Maheshwari and Emmanuel Wu, this program taught twenty students intermediate and advanced-level chess. Our chess curriculum has been refined over countless iterations and has been purposefully designed to focus on enhancing students’ chess intuition. We really focus on building students’ instincts and pattern-recognition skills to guide their chess thinking.

We capped this class off with a fun chess tournament at the end. Congrats to our winners!

2024-2025 XFYD Chess Season

Benjamin Tang — Sun, 22 Jun 2025 01:21:18 +0000

XFYD’s Chess Program has continued throughout the 2024-2025 school year, bringing introductory chess to hundreds of students at both in-person and online classes.

One of our classes early in the year was our XFYD Wittmann Chess Class. Bringing a five-week hands-on Chess Class to over 20 elementary schoolers, we helped introduce new students to Chess and guide students who were already proficient in Chess Basics to higher strategic skills necessary for excelling in Chess.

This class is led by Benjamin Tang and Darsh Maheshwari, who have competed in national tournaments for years and have hundreds of hours of experience tutoring chess with XFYD. Our other teachers, Keenan Park, Ocean Cheng, and Aditi Ganesh, also have years of experience teaching chess. This chess tutoring program at Wittmann has run for three years to date, first set up by Benjamin and Ocean. In that time, it has brought chess teaching to over 80 students. Our system of focusing on hands-on learning, having fun, and applying chess concepts you learn by playing and competing has helped our students grow significantly in chess year after year.

This isn’t the only chess event held recently. A group of 5 volunteers held an Online Chess Class in the Spring, led by Emmanuel Wu, our Chess Division Director. Tutoring over 20 students in chess, our teachers helped students grow systematically and intuitively.

Through several weeks of chess classes, our students were taught advanced chess tactics and strategy by Emmanuel Wu, Adithya Anand, Aditi Ganesh, Matthew Chen, and Joseph Chen. These students, all skilled chess competitors with Whitney’s Chess Club, shared their experiences growing and learning with chess with the younger kids. Kids not only learned fundamental chess concepts like openings, structures, and tactical thinking, but they also developed a love for the competition.

XFYD Long-Running Elementary Art Class Concludes

Benjamin Tang — Tue, 03 Jun 2025 07:56:12 +0000

XFYD has concluded its long-running Art Class at Elliot Elementary School! This art class is just one of the many dozens of multi-week art classes the XFYD Art Division has held at local churches, elementary schools, and libraries for over two years of operation. This class brought a fun art education to 25 Elliot Elementary students.

Students were given a comprehensive, well-rounded arts enrichment experience. This class exposed and immersed students in all kinds of art, including painting, origami, color pencil art, markers, and sketch. This class was incredibly hands-on. Our teachers would make sure students were comfortable with using all kinds of art and drawing materials, training student sin fundamental painting techniques and styles. Students would hunch over their painting or drawing they’re working, deeply in thought and focused.

Above all, however, this class gave students an outlet to express their creativity and allow their imaginations and personalities to soar, letting loose with their artistic side. Here at XFYD, we believe that this kind of artistic discovery is more important than ever. In such a high-pressure world, our XFYD President and Art Division Head, Maximo Zhang, expressed how art helped him find his own passion and peace in academically stressful environments. He wanted to bring the same kind of joy and outlet to students.

This class could not have happened without our wonderful volunteers and teachers. Driven by their own passion to employ their skills and talents to better and enrich the students of our communities, our volunteers are imbued with a genuine sense of passion for art. Our volunteers are guided by an earnest desire to help young kids find joy in the activities they themselves appreciated since childhood.

Our volunteers and teachers lead curriculum, design lessons, and organize our classes to ensure a smooth execution of all our classes. They are incredibly skilled, dedicated, and have years of experience teaching and volunteering with dozens of other XFYD classes. We are forever thankful to our volunteers!

XFYD Milpitas – 20th Chess Class Completed

Benjamin Tang — Mon, 12 May 2025 07:51:12 +0000

XFYD Milpitas has reached a milestone!

This new Bay Area XFYD branch, established last year, has completed its long-running chess class at the library.

These classes have gone on from March to May, and are just one of many new events XFYD Milpitas has been expanding its enrichment events for the local community.

Om Suthar and Charles Bi teach the classes. They are incredibly accomplished chess competitors with years of experience playing in professional and rated chess tournaments.

The recent chess classes at the library have been so popular that there is a waiting list—the library cannot handle all the students eager to sign up and learn chess! So far, over 40 students crowd into the room, eager to play and learn. The chess teachers use a variety of tools, including online puzzles and free-play chess games.

This massively successful chess class follows after XFYD Milpitas’s Chess Division has already held several large-scale online chess classes, taught using Lichess and Zoom.

Charles and Om were motivated to lead the Chess Division last summer due to the distinct lack of enrichment chess activities in their community. Chess improves critical thinking and problem-solving and instills a strategic mindset in young kids when taught at an early age. Charles and Om were both taught chess as children, so they wanted to give young kids the same experience through chess classes and tournaments, both online and in-person. They’ve dedicated dozens of hours to designing the curriculum, planning the classes, and leading lectures and activities for students.

Their drive to provide kids with enrichment opportunities they deserve isn’t over yet, however. Charles, Om, and Amanda are now trying to expand this program to even more kids after May. On top of Chess, they also teach coding and computer science online to a group of core students. They will try to grow a coding program at the local library.

Beyond Blindness Balloon Race Car Lesson

Benjamin Tang — Sun, 23 Mar 2025 06:24:24 +0000

On Monday 12/2/24, XFYD Westminster brought their second event, a STEM Class, to Beyond Blindness. At the event, our teachers, Kyle Nguyen and Darren Nguyen (both juniors of La Quinta High School), along with our volunteers, taught and guided Beyond Blindness kids about how to make their very own balloon race car. Volunteers helped punch holes into the caps, hand out materials, and help kids who were stuck. They were also able to race with others afterwards. After the event, each student was able to keep their own balloon race car, and extra materials like balloons were given out to kids to play with.

Context:
- On Monday 12/2/24, XFYD Westminster brought their second event, a STEM Class, to Beyond Blindness.
- Children blindness education center
  - Somewhat blind kids
- 11-12:30 pm
- Two shifts, 30 minutes each
At the event:
- Our teachers, Kyle Nguyen and Darren Nguyen (both juniors of La Quinta High School), along with our volunteers, taught and guided Beyond Blindness kids about how to make their very own balloon race car.
- We had some people work on punching holes into the caps, handing out materials, and helping kids who were stuck
- There were other clubs from our school there to assist us that we didn’t know were going to come and
- Each kid had a guardian to accompany them
- We got to race kids who got to complete their car in time
After the event:
- Each student was able to keep their own balloon race car
- Extra materials like balloons were given out to kids to play with

Milpitas: Chess + Coding Class

Benjamin Tang — Sun, 23 Mar 2025 06:02:36 +0000

XFYD is excited to share the success of its chess class, led by Om Suthar! This engaging and interactive program introduced elementary school students to the fundamentals of chess, helping them build a strong foundation in strategy and gameplay. Using Lichess as a learning tool, students explored key concepts such as board control, piece development, and tactical patterns. Through practice games and guided lessons, they sharpened their critical thinking and decision-making skills. By the end of the class, students were ready to take on friends and family with confidence, applying their knowledge to every move they made.

Science Night & New XFYD Science Kits

Benjamin Tang — Sat, 22 Mar 2025 08:13:18 +0000

XFYD has recently impacted over 200 students at a science night at Gonsalves Elementary School!

Our volunteers have organized three fun activities for students to participate in, exploring fun ideas in Chemistry and Physics. We’ve also designed and hand-crafted nearly 50 take-home Science Kits for parents and students to take home and further their exploration of science on their own in a fun and hands-on kit.

Through a Tesla Coil, young kids were able to explore the fun of electricity and electromagnetism. Invented by Nikola Tesla, a Tesla coil is a device that generates extremely high-voltage electricity and produces visible electrical discharges. It works by using a power source to charge a capacitor, which then rapidly releases energy into a primary coil of wire. This creates a changing magnetic field that induces a much higher voltage in a secondary coil through electromagnetic induction. This allows the voltage to build up to the point where it ionizes the surrounding air, creating arcs of electricity.

Students were able to try this out, holding up medal chopsticks to see arcs of electricity travel from the coil through the air into the chopsticks. Strong enough currents of electricity were even able to travel from that metal chopstick into their hands or light up pieces of LED lights! Through this concept, we explained how lightning rods work: Instead of lightning hitting buildings or people, lightning rods, giant metal columns like these chopsticks, would instead channel the lightning and direct the electricity harmlessly into the ground.

Our STEM Division Head, Ben (JJ) Luu, conducted an exciting and visually striking chemistry demonstration that showcased the fascinating reactions between acids and metals! The experiment involved the use of highly concentrated 12 Molar Hydrochloric Acid (HCl)—an incredibly powerful and corrosive substance—carefully reacted with a strip of magnesium metal (Mg). When magnesium comes into contact with hydrochloric acid, it undergoes a vigorous single-replacement reaction, producing magnesium chloride (MgCl₂) and releasing hydrogen gas (H₂) as a byproduct.

As the reaction progressed, bubbles of hydrogen gas rapidly formed and were collected through a rubber tube leading into a tub of soap solution. As the hydrogen gas became trapped within the soap, it created a collection of lightweight, flammable hydrogen bubbles. To make the demonstration even more thrilling, JJ used a butane lighter to ignite the hydrogen bubbles, causing them to explode with a bright, fiery burst! This spectacular exothermic reaction highlighted both the reactive nature of hydrogen gas and the importance of understanding chemical energy. We shared how these chemical reactions shape the world around us—for example, the 1937 Hindenburg Airship Disaster was caused when highly flammable Hydrogen gas caught fire, much like this demonstration.

Because this demonstration involved highly concentrated acids and potentially hazardous explosions, strict safety precautions were followed at all times. The team ensured that proper protective gear, such as safety goggles, gloves, and lab coats, was worn, and the experiment was conducted in a controlled, well-ventilated area.

Our final experiment was a far more intricate and thought-provoking demonstration, offering students a glimpse into the fascinating world of biopolymer synthesis. Using glycerol—a key component in many cosmetic and pharmaceutical products—along with starch extracted from potatoes, we initiated a complex chemical reaction that resulted in the formation of a thin, flexible layer of biodegradable plastic.

This process mimics real-world methods used in the production of sustainable, plant-based plastics. The starch, a natural polymer found in potatoes, serves as the foundation for the plastic, while the glycerol acts as a plasticizer, giving the final product flexibility and durability. When heated and mixed under controlled conditions, these ingredients undergo a gelatinization process, breaking down their molecular structure and reorganizing into a new, plastic-like material. As the mixture cooled and solidified, students could observe the formation of a thin, translucent film, an eco-friendly alternative to traditional plastics.

XFYD also sold hands-on, all-inclusive Science Kits to parents and to the Gonsalves Elementary PTA Foundation! Two different kits, featuring different features and lessons, were all hand-crafted and purposefully designed by the XFYD STEM Division composed of high school science researchers and members of one of the most competitive Science Olympiad teams in the nation. One experiment allowed students to create a balloon-powered car, providing all the materials they needed to engineer and modify their own car design. Another kit provided a fun way for students to learn about thermal reflection by creating a DIY Smore-Roasting Kit! We sold out all 50 of our hand-crafted kits to generous parents and the Foundation. We warmly appreciate it!