Spare Parts: Four Undocumented Teenagers, One Ugly Robot, and the Battle for the American Dream
Written by Joshua Davis
Narrated by Will Damron
5/5
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About this audiobook
Joshua Davis's Spare Parts--now a major motion picture--is a story about overcoming insurmountable odds and the 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.
Four undocumented Mexican American students, two great teachers, one robot-building contest . . .
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.
Finalist for the J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize
New York Times Best Seller
Joshua Davis
JOSHUA DAVIS is a contributing editor at Wired and co-founder of EPIC magazine, and he has written for The New Yorker, GQ, Outside, Men's Journal, Men's Health, Maxim and Food & Wine. His writing was anthologized in the 2012 edition of The Best American Science and Nature Writing, as well as the 2006, 2007 and 2009 editions of The Best Technology Writing. In 2002, Davis completed The Beast Within, a documentary film about his attempt to become the lightweight armwrestling champion of the world. The film won Best Documentary at the 2003 Telluride Mountain Film Festival. In April of 2003, Josh snuck into Iraq to cover the war for Wired and later that year became a contributing editor at the magazine. In 2005, he published his first book, The Underdog, a recounting of his arm-wrestling, bullfighting, sumo, sauna and backward running adventures. La Vida Robot is his second book. WEB: joshuadavis.net TWITTER: @JoshuaDavisNow FACEBOOK: Joshua Davis TUMBLR: joshuadavisnow.tumblr.com
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Reviews for Spare Parts
7 ratings1 review
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Beautifully written and narrated. Brought tears hearing the hardships, perseverance, courage and endurance of the teenagers and about humans! A must read if you have a desire to learn the cultural issues and challenges of people across the globe and in this case from mexico.