Across campus, in a second-floor windowless room, four students huddle around an odd, 3-foot-tall frame constructed of PVC pipe. They have equipped it with propellers, cameras, lights, a laser, depth detectors, pumps, an underwater microphone, and an articulated pincer. At the top sits a black, waterproof briefcase containing a nest of hacked processors, minuscule fans, and LEDs. It’s a cheap but astoundingly functional underwater robot capable of recording sonar pings and retrieving objects 50 feet below the surface. The four teenagers who built it are all undocumented Mexican immigrants who came to this country through tunnels or hidden in the backseats of cars. They live in sheds and rooms without electricity. But over three days last summer, these kids from the desert proved they are among the smartest young underwater engineers in the country. —Joshua Davis —La Vida Robot (Wired)
Awesome story of hope, education, and transnational geekdom.
And how’s this for a teaser quote?
When Luis lowered Stinky into the water for their run, Lorenzo prayed to the Virgin Mary. He prayed that the tampons would work but then wondered if the Virgin got her period and whether it was appropriate for him to be praying to her about tampons. He tried to think of a different saint to pray to but couldn’t come up with an appropriate one. The whir of Stinky’s propellers brought him back to the task at hand, extracting a water sample from a submerged container.
Beautiful. Just beautiful!
Thanks, Anonymous, for reminding us that every story is always bigger than the “angle” that a particular reporter chooses in order to sell a story to an editor, and bigger than the teasers that the editors choose in order to sell the story to the public.
*sigh* If only people actually knew what was REALLY going on…
I went to Carl Hayden High School, I was in the robotics team. It wasn’t just these four guys who participated, it was MANY people, of different races, half of which were female. But does the article mention that? No way…
Yes, I do think it was a great accomplishment that our team won, I couldn’t have been more proud, but when all anyone can talk about is these four boys, as if they did all the work, as if it were a miracle that they won, it’s just infuriating.
By reading this article, and others about the team, you would assume that nobody else was involved, but what you would never know is that one of the main workers on the team was a white kid by the name of Mike Hank. He was the brains of the operation for sure, but do you ever hear his name? Do you see his picture? No way. Why is this? It’s because Mr. Ladjvardi and Dr. Cameron have become very good at capitalizing on the minorities in the school.
How do you think they raise all the money for competitions? By taking the minority kids to potential sponsors, by bringing them in the public eye, by neglecting all the white people on the team, who work just as hard as anyone else, if not more so (as with Mike).
I think that the only thing about this situation that people should be in awe about is the fact that a high school in Phoenix (in the DESERT!) beat a prestigious college in a competition that they should have dominated in, considering they’re a technology school who obviously is nearer to water than us. That’s it. Not because some of the people involved in the competition happen to be Hispanic or illegal immigrants, but because it was the team’s doing, even though we live in a desert and are just from a poor high school…
Enough with praising a few people and leaving everyone else in the dark. It’s ridiculous.