about the book
Four teenagers, born in Mexico, are raised in an impoverished neighborhood in Phoenix, Arizona. Oscar, Cristian, Luis, Lorenzo, living as undocumented residents, attend an underfunded public high school. With little encouragement given to them, they’re never had a reason to believe they’ll ever be able to do anything great.
But two inspiring science teachers somehow convince the teens to build an underwater robot for an upcoming competition. There are only a couple problems: The teens have never even been to the ocean, and they have little money to build their machine. Despite their chances, the teens go at it. After scraping together less than $1,000 and gathering scavenged parts, they assemble a less-than-pretty robot to bring to competition.
And competition is fierce—this isn’t just other high school kids. The teenagers are facing some of the best collegiate engineers in the nation, such as a group from MIT with a $10,000 grant from ExxonMobil.
But against all odds, they win!
They haven’t won it all, though. Ahead of the teens are first-generation college graduations, deportation, laborious work in Mexico, and service in Afghanistan. The question: Will these teens continue to beat the odds despite living in a world against them?
about the author
Sumo wrestler, backwards runner, arm wrestler, drift racer, writer, film producer, co-founder of Epic Magazine—all describe Joshua Davis. After sneaking into Iraq to cover the war for Wired, he earned his spot and has been a contributing editor for the magazine for the last twelve years. He has also been imprisoned on three continents. Why? This is how Josh writes.
Before his time with Wired, Josh trained in an attempt to become a lightweight arm-wrestling champion, documenting his attempts in the film called The Beast Within, completed in 2002. The 2003 Telluride Mountain Film Festival honored the film as Best Documentary. The experience was also documented in Josh’s first book, The Underdog, published in 2005. The book also recounts Josh’s experiences with bullfighting, sumo wrestling, sauna, and backward running!
Josh’s third book (Spare Parts)—about four underdogs other than himself—was distinguished as a best new book by Amazon and the BBC. Aside from Epic Magazine and Wired, Josh has also written for The New Yorker, GQ, Outside, Men’s Journal, Men’s Health, Maxim, and Food & Wine.
Josh currently lives in San Francisco, California.
Sources:
Author website
Author biography: Epic Magazine
Author biography: Wikipedia
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