How four underdogs took on M.I.T. in underwater bot championship (2005) | Hacker News Reader

How four underdogs took on M.I.T. in underwater bot championship (2005)

archive.wired.com

46 pointscurtis11 comments

And then all of them could not go to college due to immigration status and lack of money. They do manual labor now. Great American Underdog Story.

even when they raised $90k of money from donations after their story was in Wired, two of them went but both dropped out. I think they work at a catering company now? it is a very american story.

and of course, most likely the team from MIT they beat are all now working at high tech companies or in graduate schools.

"The point of the game is not to win the game. The point of the game is to take the prize home."

Reminds me of a mini-competition that happened between some San Antonio unis about who got to do a NASA internship. The girl who got 3rd place went because the winner and runner-up were not American citizens (I was the runner-up).

We ended up collaborating on the design remotely. In later life, I had at least one person tell me that I couldn't put that on a resume. This person was not hurt.

Well, if you think it's just them then there's plenty of good research[1] that shows the attrition rate for first generation college students is a definite problem. Cultural norms change takes approximately three generations for it to take hold. A Great American Underdog Story is that one of the participants helped move the discussion ahead on how can the USA promote worthwhile talent within our borders irrespective of how it got here[2]. Note: I do see you're Canadian, and therefore likely are unfamiliar with the actual demographics and concerns of the American Southwest, so while I think your joke isn't really that funny, that's OK.

[1] http://dus.psu.edu/mentor/2011/02/resiliency-among-first-gen...

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DREAM_Act

NYT covers these engineers and their immigration status last month:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/16/opinion/the-cruel-waste-of...

For Wired:

> "What will you say," [Ira Mehlman] asks, "to an American kid who does not get into a state university and whose family cannot afford a private college because that seat and that subsidy have been given to someone who is in the country illegally?"

I would say, "We need to restore state college funding to the level it was when Ira Mehlman went to college; to make practical advanced education accessible to all, because it's the best investment we can make in our nation"

Hasn't this been read and read over and over again?

A film has just been released in select US cinemas based on their story

Spare Parts (2015) - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3233418/

Yes, I have seen the film and it is quite good. The story itself and the cinematic execution are definitely above par, I'd give it 4 out of 5 stars for entertainment and quality.

Also, I'm reluctant to call it an underdog story. It's more a "coming of age" story, which is a different thing. There are many, many emotional aspects to the film (family dynamics - multiple generations in a home, absent father or a deported mother) which serve to enhance the overall themes of what happened.

Lastly, it's one of the few films I've seen recently that doesn't rely on CGI to show off important parts of the story. As the credits indicated, there were teams of robotics professionals who built the units used in the film.

I recommend the film and will buy it to have in my house to put on in the background when the mood strikes me. Others that fit that bill for me are Rush, Shawshank Redemption, The Crow, and The Big Lebowski. YMMV.

isn't there already a movie called "underwater dreams" about the same thing?

Been in hacker news since the beginning and only recently did I hear about this. So, to answer your question: no.

I don't know why, but I kept reading this as underwear bot championship...

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