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Book Cover
Book
Author Davis, Joshua, 1974- author

Title Spare Parts : Four Undocumented Teenagers, One Ugly Robot, and the Battle for the American Dream / Joshua Davis

Copies

LOCATION CALL NO. STATUS
 Bangor Pub. Lib. Stacks  629.892.D2943s    AVAILABLE  
 Maine State Lib. Stacks  OFFSITE 629.892 D262s 2014    AVAILABLE  
Edition First edition, 2014
Phys Descr xii, 224 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 22 cm
Note BPL: Given in memory of Professor Melvin Gershman.
Text in English
Summary Relates how four undocumented Mexican immigrants in Arizona put together an underwater robot from scavenged parts and went on to win the National Underwater Robotics Competition at UC Santa Barbara
Four undocumented Mexican American students, two great teachers, one robot-building contest . . . and a major motion picture. In 2004, four Latino teenagers arrived at the Marine Advanced Technology Education Robotics Competition at the University of California, Santa Barbara. They were born in Mexico but raised in Phoenix, Arizona, where they attended an underfunded public high school. No one had ever suggested to Oscar, Cristian, Luis, or Lorenzo that they might amount to much, but two inspiring science teachers had convinced these impoverished, undocumented kids from the desert who had never even seen the ocean that they should try to build an underwater robot. And build a robot they did. Their robot wasn't pretty, especially compared to those of the competition. They were going up against some of the best collegiate engineers in the country, including a team from MIT backed by a $10,000 grant from ExxonMobil. The Phoenix teenagers had scraped together less than $1,000 and built their robot out of scavenged parts. This was never a level competition, and yet, against all odds . . . they won! But this is just the beginning for these four, whose story--which became a key inspiration to the DREAMers movement--will go on to include first-generation college graduations, deportation, bean-picking in Mexico, and service in Afghanistan. Joshua Davis's Spare Parts is a story about overcoming insurmountable odds and four young men who proved they were among the most patriotic and talented Americans in this country--even as the country tried to kick them out
Subject Robotics -- Competitions -- United States
Remote submersibles -- Competitions -- United States
Mexican American boys -- Education -- United States
Mexican Americans -- Economic conditions
Phoenix (Ariz.) -- Social life and customs
OCLC # 879662295
ISBN # 9780374183370
0374183376
9780374534981
0374534985