👋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. :)
Podcasting
To start off, me and Annie released the second episode of A Seat at the Table! This was a wonderful conversation to be a part of, and we’re super thankful to Jennah, our director, for her insights and stories. Check out the episode here! 👀
Finishing TKS Innovate
TKS ended officially in June, just like school, but as far I was concerned, it was most certainly not over. My logic was that it couldn’t possibly have been finished, because there was still summer velocity! Right? 🙃
But now, very unfortunately, summer velocity has also ended, so I have no choice but to accept this. I’d like to give the shoutout of a lifetime to Navid and Nadeem for creating a program like this. I want to extend overwhelming gratitude to my incredible directors, Jennah and Pranav. 💖I want to say a massive thank you to every single person I met through TKS. You’ve all changed my life. 🤩
I want to give special shoutouts to Adheena, Unmol, Annie, Omar, Keerthana, Opemipo, Jens, Mercy, Carlos, and Anika.
I found my intro video that I recorded at the start of the year. It’s genuinely hard to watch - the difference is striking. 😂(not going to share the vid here, sorry XD). It’s insane to think how much I’ve grown in just 10 months, both in technical knowledge, but also in raw skills (eg time management) and as a person.
I don’t know where I would have ended up without TKS, but I’m insanely happy I’m where I am. I’m so hyped for Activate (the second year program), and to see what happens in the next year, both with all the cracked people I met this year and with my own growth! 🚀
To commemorate the end of Innovate, Opemipo and I make a TKS slander video. Highly recommend, check it out below.
Exploring Climate Tech
This month I was really focused on exploring a bunch of different technologies that I thought I might be interested in. I had this whole list, and I started with biofuels. Then I realized that I really enjoyed the climate space, so I decided to start another focus in Alternative Energy. (Non-tksers - a focus is an independent project in which you build stuff in a certain field and gain depth).
I also wrote an article 👀 on the different methods of energy storage, and made a video 🤩on material science for the clean energy transition. (yes, don’t worry, I’m not abandoning material science XD I think the applications of it to the energy space are quite intriguing - eg batteries.)
Right now I’m working on my apply (second stage, where you build something), and I’m doing it on thermoelectrics. 🌡️Thermoelectrics are materials that can convert heat directly into electricity⚡, which can be useful for capturing waste heat as well as applications in thermal energy storage.
Update: space suit textile @ York University
Me and Keerthana have been going into York all month, almost every day. The downside with working in hardware is that you need materials before you can actually do anything, and that’s exactly what we have been up to. We didn’t plan well enough and forgot about a lot of stuff that’s super important concerning the logistics of our experiment, so as a result progress has been slow. 📉
For anyone reading this considering getting a lab, plan your materials out beforehand. Everything. Do your research, and be thorough. The profs work for you, so you have to know what’s going on. Because we spent so long just getting organized, we wasted a lot of time, and now this project is extending longer than it needed to. And there’s been quite a few points that we needed to pivot quite drastically.
There was even a scare with our entire experiment, because the lunar dust we had ordered is super toxic and dangerous, and we couldn’t find suitable safety equipment for it. 😬I’m pretty sure we found a way around it though, we’re going to filter out crystalli e silica, which is the compound causing all the toxicity.
Since I’m out of the country, Keerthana is flying solo for a bit and trying to get all of our materials and run the first experiment! There’ll be another progress update in the next newsletter! 🛰️
Quote
This is something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. I have a tendency to become completely focused on one thing, and as a result end up spending every second I can on it.
Being productive isn’t about being able to do more work. It’s about having more time to do the stuff you love.
In TKS Innovate, I put in a ridiculous amount of hours. And yeah, I saw benefits. But quite a few people put in way less time-wise and got way more results. And the only way that happens is because they are being way more effective with their time that I was.
Sure, maybe I spend 10 hours on x, but how much of that was spent staring blankly at the computer or getting distracted in one rabbit hole or another? This is why the concept of deep work is so powerful, at least I think so.
One of my least favourite things is wasting time, and I’m basically just doing that. By not being effective in my work, I’m sacrificing my “free time” to “get work done.” But what’s the point of life if all you’re doing is tip tap typing away at your computer? Life is wonderful. You should do things you love and experience life to the fullest. There’s no point in wasting your life away grinding on something you hate doing. Or at the very least, don’t enjoy.
If you love your work, amazing. But you’re probably not going to love everything about it. What you do has to be fueled by a love though. Maybe you don’t love reading papers about crystalline structures, but you love understanding how conductivity is influenced. The former is a prerequisite to the latter.
If you’re just forcing yourself to work on something you don’t enjoy, you’re giving up your precious time.
Being “productive” is a way to get more done in less time. So you have more time to chill. Not an excuse to work even more than you already are. Ask yourself: how can I get twice as much as other people done in half the time?
I’m pretty sure this is applicable only to a very niche group of people, so I hope it helped at least one person. :)
Media Recommendations
📕How to win friends and Influence people by Dale Carneige
Had a lot of people recommending this book, and finally started to read it. Everything he talks about makes so much sense, and all the principles are very simple and easy to remember. I’m working my way through it right now, so I can’t give a full synapses. But I will say that I think dealing with people is an incredibly important skill in life. A lot of the time, it comes down to who do you know, who can get you there, as opposed to what do you know.
📕Tools for Titans by Tim Ferris
This book is full of timeless wisdom, in my opinion at least. Tim condenses knowledge and advice from the world’s smartest minds into one book. Admittedly, it’s a massive book, but still. 😂I can already tell that this is going to be a book I revisit again and again. And a lot of the stuff he mentions is very applicable.
July in Pictures
biking on beautiful trails🚲
visiting Italy!
quote I love 💖
building a thermoelectric generator
Mozart learning matsci
sunset on the ocean 🌊
boarding the plane to Italy ✈️
doing a triathlon 🏃
a stunning restaurant we went to
Next Month
my apply article + video
update on York lab
hopefully more podcasting! 🤞
Oh by the way, I am considering switching to quarterly newsletters. I don’t think it would be much of a value loss, and also Navid recommended it. 🤷♂️
But anyways, thanks for reading, and have a wonderful rest of your summer!
— Sasha
Super excited to read the next update about your lab project at York!!
Yess, Sasha! It was awesome meeting you this July <3 all the best with all your projects.