Livin' La Vida Robot - Local High School Takes on M.I.T.

In April of 2005 Wired Magazine published one of *the* feel good stories of a lifetime.

It was called "La Vida Robot" ... It's the adventure of a group of inner city high school students from West Phoenix who dared to compete in a NASA sponsered science competition against the best and the brightest students from the more legendary colleges in the nation.

Their task was to build a remote controlled, military grade robot that could maneuver underwater and perform a series of complex repair oriented tasks.

All parts and materials were to be purchased with funds from doners. M.I.T. received $5,000 of their $11,000 budget from ExxonMobile.

The Carl Hayden High School team landed a total of $800 from local businesses. Their team members had little more than part time experience in construction and auto mechanics.

Their secret weapon? ...smarts, discipline and creative thinking.

While other teams assembled their robots out of advanced electronics and professional grade parts, the high school team found many of their components at Home Depot, salvage stores and... you'll have to read the story- the personal higene section of Ralph's Grocery Store.

So- how'd they do?

I don't want to give it away.

You have two choices:

Read the story ... or watch the movie- Salma Hayek will be producing it. If it weren't true you would never believe it.

I highly recommend reading the story in its entirety...

...then when you just have to know more about what happened to the kids involved, here's the update. 

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Chuck Willman is a real estate agent in the Phoenix metro area. He can be reached at www.AZvest.com