👋Hello hello! I hope you’re doing fantastically. I’m Sasha, a 15 year old innovator based near Toronto, Canada. Welcome to my monthly newsletter, where I share what’s happened in the past month. :)
I hope your August was every bit as wonderful as mine was, and that you’re (somewhat) ready to go back to school ;)
What I’ve been working on:
A quick synopsis of what I’ve been looking into this past month: alternative energy combined with material science as well as some reflections. Feel free to check out some of my content to learn more about anything that interests you :)
⚡Made a video on the conductivity of graphene: check it out here!
🔥Dove deep into thermoelectric devices + how I made my own (my apply)! Video here, article here :)
🔋Wrote an article on the materials that make up lithium ion batteries here for part of my project with buildspace, which is trying to make a battery from abundant materials to help reduce the cost.
🚢Made another article on my takeaways from my vacation to the Mediterranean here
York Update
For those of you who may not know, my friend Keerthana and I have been going to York University over the summer to work on our create, which is a space suit textile to prevent lunar dust abrasion.
Going there was definetly a great experience, and it taught us a lot about how a lab actually works. Key takeaways: 👀 your profs work for you, and everything takes 5x longer than expected.
Unfortunately, our supervising professor was very busy this summer, and since everything needs to be cleared by him, we weren’t able to get as much done as we had intended. We ran a few tests, but since Keerthana and I both live quite far away from York, we won’t be able to go during the school year. We are considering writing a theoretical paper to make the most of this project and the time we invested into it!
Above all I think the biggest learning I had from this was to make it real when you can (because you will learn infinitely more) and trust your gut feeling.
Finishing up with summer… 😭
One of the nicest things about summer was being able to set up my day however I wanted. Go for a run at 10am? No problem. Schedule calls at 1:30pm? Copy that. I’ve realized how I’d like to arrange my day and at what time certain activities are best for me to do.
For example, I really like to do my most important task early in the morning then go run/swim at around 7 or 8. Then when I get back I will do something that requires thinking (eg writing/brainstorming/researching) as my head will be clear. The afternoons are a bit more varied depending on what types of things I have planned for the day.
However, with school starting up very soon, I won’t have that freedom. Which is unfortunate, although I’m definetly going to try to make the best of it! Having a more defined schedule will allow me to get into a nice routine.
I had a wonderful summer though, with lots of biking running and swimming. I met up with a lot of friends which was amazing. I also reassessed where I wanted to go and what I wanted to work on, and took time to pause and absorb all the stuff I’ve been speeding through over the past year.
A couple days ago I met up with Jennah (the most amazing human ever), Anh, and Adheena, which was absolutely amazing!! We had a fantastic time.
I can’t be too sad about the end of summer though, because that means 2 things: Activate and Cross-Country!!
I am so incredibly excited for Activate, we were just sent the program schedule and they have a material science session!! You know I am hyped for that one. 🤩
And of course, back to the most wonderful school sport ever created: cross countrryyy!! 🏃I’m very excited for this year and looking forward to running on trails and on rougher terrain. Getting to miss school for a day is also greatly appreciated XD
Podcasting
After a brief lull due to travelling in the summer, Annie and I are back with another podcast!! We are thrilled to share our conversation with Dr. Shini Somara, who you might know as the engineer who makes the Crash Course physics videos. 👀
Quote
I’m really drifting away from these being quotes and having more just things I’m thinking about . . . sorry. Hopefully you don’t mind. 😊
Become the Standard.
I think this is from one of David Goggins’ books. I wrote about this in one of my articles, but here’s the excerpt:
Basically, Goggins went to the Air Assault School, and they had to do 5 pullups and 10 elevated pushups every day. Goggins finished his pullups, then dropped off the bar. The guy beside him however, kept going and did far more than 5 pullups. Then he dropped and did way more than 10 pushups. Goggins said it was the first time he had seen anyone do more than what was required, especially in a place where they were guaranteed to be half dead by the end. It had always been assumed that the job of the students was to meet the requirements that had been outlined by the superiors.
But this mystery guy obviously didn’t care about those standards. His name was Captain Connolly, and he didn’t rely on external motivations. He had his own standards, and he used the existing structure for his own purposes — to see what he was capable of. He was on the far right of the bell curve. He became the standard.
This resonated so much with me. I feel like we can get caught up in comparing ourselves to others and measuring our success against those closest to us. Especially if we are not already crystal clear on our own definition of success.
And while that is definetly useful, it can backfire if:
a) you match the level of your peers, or
b) they’re not where you want to end up.
The most wonderful way I heard this explained is that self improvement is not for everyone. If you’re in a group of people and you want to improve and get on that exponential curve of growth, but no one else in your group does, it’s pretty obvious that at some point your ambitions will exceed theirs.
The “danger” if you will, is staying in that group, and thinking you have achieved success because you are measuring it against your closest peers. But in reality, if you want to become truly exceptional, you need to measure yourself against the greatest people who ever lived.
You want to become a pianist? Become like Mozart. You want to do material science? Be Taylor Sparks. Fill it in for your own field and who is known as the absolute best in that field. That is who you are aiming for. If you don’t strive to be the best, you often won’t even become good, as Paul Graham says in his essay.
And this isn’t to de-motivate you. I personally have found that it excites me and drives me to work harder. It’s more exciting to work on ambitious things than things you are positive you can complete. Seeing how far you can go is where the real learnings come.
With anything that you want to become truly exceptional and world class at, ask yourself: “How can I become the standard? How can I be the person that people will be measuring their success against?”
Also: I think this will only work for people who are especially ambitious, and also willing to put in the work.
Media Recommendations
📕Never Finished by David Goggins
Finally hopped on the David Goggins train, I know I know. But honestly, this book was a MASSIVE wake up call for me to get my life back on track. His other book, Can’t Hurt Me, is amazing as well - it’s got some more specific action items, which have been incredibly helpful. I am currently doing the “track what you do every 15 mins for a week” thing, which has already produced some astounding numbers. (I swear, I didn’t know I wasted that much time 😭).
🎧The Tim Ferriss Show by Tim Ferriss
Been listening to this a lot lately - I love Tim’s style of asking questions and the way he engages his guests. Almost as good as Taylor Sparks 👀. He’s got ~650+ episodes, so I’m sure you’ll find some topic you like. If you’ve got any recommendations for episodes you particularly enjoyed, would love to hear it. I’m willing to guess that a lot of you already listen to this podcast though XD
August in Pictures
Next Month
Activateeee!!! 🔥
Cross country 🤩
school :(
more podcasting 🎧
batteries!!! 🔋
Thanks for reading! See ya soon :)
-Sasha