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High School Kids Beat MIT at Robotics Competition
An anonymous writer submitted a story saying "A bunch of bright high school kids from Carl Hayden Highschool beat out MIT in a Marine Technology Center's Robotics competition.
Here are additional details of the competition."
must attend high school somewhere. Right?
"Talent" is not something exclusive to MIT people.
Before this deteriorates in to a Pro/Anti Immigration flame fest, I cannot but feel awe for these four kids who braced odds to be where they are at now. And to know that the odds piled up against their favor include being alien, poor, living in gang infested streets and yet be capable of this?
For one, I hope the media picks this up, not just Wired. I hope they get as much visibility as they can, on their plight, the lives they live and their achievements. We have all heard and read of ordinary people who surmounted amazing odds to claim their personal victories, but seemingly they happen far less and few in between. What this country need to know is despite poverty, crime and the potential to go wrong, not one, but four kids chose the right, but tough path. And they should be commended for that till kingdom come.
But for what we have seen, the INS would pick them up next week and hand them back to a grateful Mexico.
Rapid Nirvana
I manage a team of 10 to 20 engineers, the number depends on the work load. In the past few years, I have had 5 engineers on my team that graduated from MIT. The MIT's were usually the first engineers to be replaced, I have not been impressed!
These kids are exactly the kind of people we should be encouraging to come to this country; smart, clever, hard-working, creative.
Yet they are here illegally, and something needs to be done about that. If these kids are as smart as the article suggests (and I have no reason to believe otherwise), attaining citizenship shouldn't be particularly taxing.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
RTFA, unless someone with $ steps up to the plate these are not future MIT students. They are currently in manual labor jobs and likely to stay there.
These students come from disadvantaged backgrounds and are unable to get into MIT. Half of them have graduated and they are not getting further education as they cannot afford it.
Yes, I know they are illegal immigrants. But, they are still kids with hopes and dreams.
I always save my last mod point to mod up a good troll. You people are too serious.
Going to college isn't to make you smarter, or more educated, it is to tell a future employer that you can put up with a bunch of BS for at least 4 years.
Often newbies are better than experts. An expert is stuck with the knowledge and experience gathered over time, it is difficult to think outside this box. A newcomer instead can have fresh, unconvential ideas that most experts probably would laugh about but sometimes produce amazing results.
;-)
On the other side, this may just be an excuse for my laziness
Open Source Alternatives
as we learn more ,we tend to like to complicate things when sometimes a far easier explination or device would suffice. .The simple idea of having onboard power and a lighter tether was a great advantage which threw the game in their favour .
They simplified many of the concepts in the design , to finaly produce a much sleaker robot with a greater performance
The design seems wonderuflly direct and simple , a good example of occam's razor in the eveloution of robots "dont add more than you need
PS:"i apoligise if i missed something TFA is loading at a snails pace for me
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
This article from the Washington Post follows-up the story in Wired. In short (and I suppose unsuprisingly), college isn't an option due to their illegal status (no loans, no in-state tuition). Of the two who have graduated high school: One of them is hanging drywall, and the other files papers at a Social Secuirty office.
Depends on how seriously you took the education.
:-) half the stuff they taught me, I feel like the act of trying to understand it increased my ability to understand a larger range of concepts - kind of like working out to increase muscle capacity.
Although I don't use (and in some cases understand
And the half that I _do_ use turned out be useful at occasionally very unexpected places. So I'm hopeful that I might be able to use some of the other half at some point in my future.
In the standings here are the breakdowns:
Engineering Eval:
Carl Hayden: 53.17
MIT: 44.67
Tech Report:
Carl Hayden: 20.25
MIT: 17
Team Display:
Carl Hayden: 13.5
MIT: 8
Mission Task:
Carl Hayden: 32
MIT: 48
Total:
Carl Hayden: 118.92
MIT: 117.67
MIT lost because they didn't care enough about their display:)
Apparently they were a little too myopic about the task.
As an engineer myself, it figures:)
I also can't help but think what a loss to their original country they are. America has a way of luring the smartest and most hard working people here with the hopes of a better life. And the country where they came from losses one more leader, one more person who could have had an impact.
It is like the USA is the Yankee's of world baseball. We don't have to grow our own talent. We can buy it elsewhere. And then, what do we give back to other countries? We open HUGE factories where we move jobs, like when GM closed the plants in Michigan and moved them to Mexico because people there would work for pennies on the dollar.
What does this say about how the world is being organized?
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
I don't believe it's offtopic, considering how much attention the article devotes to the topic, to consider for a moment the scale and scope of illegal immigration in the U.S..
If you don't live anywhere near the border, it is probably impossible for you to imagine what has happened over the past two decades in this country. Without any honest debate or policy making, we have entirely, almost formally abdicated the southern border of the United States. Literally millions of "visitors" from other countries now live here. The debate is no longer whether to try to "strengthen the border" but whether or not to give their children driver's licenses and scholarships.
What we have done is create a de-facto second class of U.S. citizen, a "sub citizen" that provides a convenient array of features to business in the southern U.S..
Now the avalanche of "issues:" xenophobia, debates about free trade and freedom of movement, patriotism and racism, classism, corny high-school economic ideologies and horse-and-barn-door-ism. The person writing this article seems to have a clear conclusion, after having spent some time in the midst of the issue: these kids are Americans, and we should treat them like Americans. The thing it makes me think of is that many of our reasoned beliefs (especially those coming from farther up in the chilly north) about what we should do about the "illegal immigration" problem - whether they are principled, right, wrong, or crazy - are often a bit divorced from reality, and most ultimately lead to perpetuation of the status quo: the institutional ghetto, the second-class citizen, and the end of what we love, these days, to lionize as the American Dream.
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How does a bunch of spanish speaking illegal immigrants write a better technical report than MIT students?
This is going to be a ridiculous anecdote, however when I was in high school I worked as a pizza boy, making pizzas at a local Mother's Pizza (in St. Thomas, ON).
One of the things that I noticed is that a couple of the stoner employees would check in late and check out early, doing a half-assed job, and eventually they would quit or be fired. It mostly went without comment.
Inexplicably, though, the managers would pick on me for every minor transgression - they'd comment that I put too much green pepper on a pizza, or that my break was during too busy of a period, or whatever. One of the days it really irritated me, so I asked "Why is it that I win the laughable `employee of the month' award virtually every month, yet you're endlessly nitpicking in a way that you don't for other employees?"
The answer stuck with me because it's true throughout life - they held me to a higher standard. While I was doing the same job as others, they saw many of them almost sympathetically, or as lost causes, so they were much more likely to overlook deficiencies or gaps.
Whenever there is subjective rankings, expect the dominant player to be graded much more critically. Expect the underdog to much more liberally have problems and mistakes overlooked.
College hardly teaches you anything tangible(unless you major in something really technical). What college does is teach you how to think , solve future problems, and conduct research. All of these things are important for people not to be dumbasses in life.
-Dipster
I am a US Citizen, severely underemployed, and I cannot afford college either. While I applaud these kids for their efforts, I don't see why illegal aliens can get federal funding to go to college, and I cannot!
Seriously. When I tried to get financial aid, I was awarded $200 in work-study, which doesn't even cover books for half a semester. It is difficult to apply for school, when you can't even pay your rent!
Zhrodague.net - I do projects and stuff too.
I would agree if we are talking about going to your local State university. Going to a university like MIT ( or Harvard, Stanford, CalTech, Carnegie Mellon, etc...) better make you smarter and more educated. These schools have reputations to live up to and charge a LOT of money.
OTOH I think you can learn things in college. The ultimate goal may be just to have that piece of paper for your resume, but you do have to sit through classes and stuff. It's all what you make of it.
Find coupons in Greeley
As another poster has mentioned, Carl Hayden used to be a magnet program (I believe they were disbanded 5-7 years ago). All of the technology, programming, networking classes were taught at Carl Hayden. I would've loved to go there but Carl Hayden is probably one of the ghettoest around (and I went to a pretty ghetto one myself ... you know with race riots and gang warfare on school grounds).
/rant
This is a great article because it shows that if you pour money into education, no matter what the background of the students, they will excell. Ofcourse when I graduated highschool in the Phoenix Union HS District (same as Carl Hayden), the statistics were against any HS graduates actually graduating from college. (As far as I understood it, out of the 5-10% that went to college, only 1 in 10 would graduate... this was from a long time teacher in the PUHSD) Sure we got scholarships, but very very few of us were prepared for the amount of reading, writing, and studying required for college. There were plenty of people like me that were competent in our respective fields, but could not handle the rest of the classes (the humanities for me).
As the article mentioned, most of the graduates of this school go on to become day laborers or work in a warehouse, and even if they do go to college, their chances of getting a degree are slim to none. I hope the federal and state governments take a tougher stance on school funding and realisticly look at what is needed to make sure every student has the opportunity to succeede.
Almost all of the PUHSD schools focus on getting the bottom more towards the middle then the middle up towards the top. Which leaves us with a weak middle, which in turn creates a less educated middle class.
Well, college didn't make me smarter, it taught me how to analyze things, think things through thoroughly, and how to build lasting relationships. I did become considerably more educated also. I did not know how to manipulate C++ data structures prior to CS202 and I didn't understand the intricacies of x86 Assembly prior to Dr. Korntved's amazingly boring but infinitely educational class.
/.'s readers graduated with a degree in Theology or Social Work). It comes down to dedication and desire. One of the benefits of going to Carnegie Melon, Princeton, Yale, and etc. are the connections you make (the guy in the cube next to me graduated from Carnegie Melon, if that says anything about the two schools, and yes, he's very intelligent).
I do believe, though, that it comes down to the individual's desire to learn and interest in being successful. I graduated from a small school in Idaho; most of you have probably never heard of it, but it produces excellent computer scientists, electronics engineers, and mathematicians (among other things, but I highly doubt many of
http://www.bynarystudio.com
Could have if they'd wanted. If you didn't want an overlap there, then no problem. I'm just bored with people whining about it and claiming college is worthless. It's worth what you put into it. If you get nothing out, well, that should say something.
Education, learning, and knowledge can't be spoon fed. Just made available.
[troll]And by doing something you mean giving these four kids money?
That is on par with the logic of starving a hundred thousand iraqui children to death through sanctions and not giving a flying f*ck, while the same happening to one braindead woman causes the whole country to stop.[/troll]
"" How about taking the safety labels off everything, and let the stupidity-problem solve itself? """
What we have here is an obvious piece of advocacy journalism:
- Over four pages of coverage of an extrordinary accomplishment by four extraordiarily talented and hard-working undocumented immigrant children.
- Most of the fifth page lamenting their financial handicap and plugging a particular federal bill to give MILLIONS of illegal-immigrant children a place at the federal tit and an entitlement to further boost the drain on the taxpayers pocketbooks - with a hefty chunk of the cashflow siphoned off to pay for more beaucrats.
- A copule sentences on how such a program would rip college opportunities out of the hands of other children who are citizens - whose parents are already being taxed - sometimes into poverty - to pay for the institutions and scholarships that would be transferred to the illegals.
Yes it stinks for the kids who built the 'bot - and others like them. But how many similar stories DIDN'T get told about rural-poor US citizen kids who performed similar feats, with similar lack of resources?
It's NOT rare. For starters, if you hang out at NASA for any length of time you'll notice that a LOT of "rocket scientists" are from such backgrounds. Many have such stories to tell. (And in NASA's heyday the educational opporiunities for a kid who was rural, southern, or (horrors!) both were comparable to those of these kids.)
Creating a new entitlement program will redistribute the resources differently but not increase them overall. Further, with the mismanagement and overhead typical of government programs, it's likely to destroy far more opportunities than it creates.
Children who are US citizens are already at a signficant disadvantage to immigrants and student-visa holders. The latter tend to get financial aid as grants - even if they are children of the rich - while the former are left with mostly loans which must be paid off at interest or suplemented by low-paid jobs that take time from study. Tuition has become so astronomical that in many fields the citizens are just dropping out, as the lifetime benefit of the education is exceeded by its unsubsidized cost.
Are we to believe that these four are typical, rather than extrordinary? (There are extrordinary individuals in all large populations.) Are we to believe the children of illegal immigrants are so much MORE competent than the children of citizens that more good than harm will come from from transferring educational opportunites from the latter to the former, dropping a bunch of them through the cracks on the way?
In order to press for a government solution, the story carefully ignores (except to belittle in passing) private sector aid. There are an enormous number of private scholarship programs and private charatable foundations with scholarship programs, with an explosion of criteria for who they will help. (The tax system makes it profitable to create them, and has for decades. And people whos story is like that of these kids who finally make it often create leg-up funds for others like themselves.) They're not well known. But for kids with track records like these there are likely to be hundreds of them that might fund them through school.
IMHO the real tragedy here is that the educational institution (with the gleeful aid of the media) did NOT help these kids dig up private funding. Instead it left them in low-paying jobs and is using their plight to push for legislation to feather its own nest.
Meanwhile, the MIT administration really ought to be busting their butts to dig up scholarship money for these kids. (Especially if they remember what the Model Railroad Club wrought.) Four children of migrant workers who, while still in highschool, beat their team with $800 to buy balloons, tampons, and PVC pipe should be the star recruits for their next freshman class.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
I just can't resist this opportunity to say how much I prefer the colleges in my country (Finland) when it comes to money matters. Essentially, universities in Finland are free of tuitions, leaving only the cost of books (which can be bought used or sometimes even found in the library, if you can't afford new ones.) Of course this is one of the reasons why we pay more taxes over here, but since they all go to things like free healthcare and education, I don't really mind. It's like every citizen in Finland was donating a little to help people like those guys get into school (among other things).
:))
:-/
Long story short, the Finnish system gives a chance to everyone who's smart enough to pass the entrance exam. (Oh, and just because our schools are free doesn't mean that they're crap
PS: Just one drawback to my glorious portrayal of my country: if you are an unregistered immigrant you would probably be on a plane back home if you attracted attention like that
As the cost of an MIT degree continues to spiral above inflation, does MIT continue to attract students that have the "Manus" part?
The article says:
I would argue that Lorenzo's hands-on experience was a key factor in his team's success.
I wonder how many of MIT's students arrive as freshman with hands-on skills? I would guess that this number has been declining over the years.
When I was a freshman at MIT, I remember fixing an old stereo on my desk. One of my eletrical engineering classmates, an absolute math genius, who had already aced the intro eletrical engineering class, asked, "Hey, what are those little things with stripes on them that you've got there?" I said, "You're kidding, right? Those are resistors, you know, "R" in all the problems you've been doing." "Oh", he said, "I'd never seen a real one before."
Mens ET Manus -- Gotta have both to be a world-class engineer. Congratulations to the "La Vida Robot" team for having what it takes!
A prof from a pretty highly ranked department in my field (chemical engineering) once told a friend and me that we were better off at a state school as undergraduates. Top research schools are more likely to allow TAs to teach courses so that their professors can be off doing what brings in the grant money. I've since heard others say the same thing, and I know that at my very poorly ranked (as in, not even in the top 50) state uni, TAs never taught lecture courses.
So, I'm honestly not certain what the extra $$$ gets for you, at least in engineering. It's probably somewhat easier to get into good grad schools (which does make all the difference in the world), but even that effect is not especially pronounced. Two people in my graduating class went directly into MIT's PhD program. Probably the main things are networking (both with profs and other students), ego, and atmosphere.
I'm sure that they likely don't pay federal income tax, but then, many citizens in their tax bracket get more back than they pay in, due to tax credits and such.
tax credits don't mean the goverment pays you money. you just get to subract that amount from the taxes you would otherwise have to pay. at best, you don't pay any taxes.
Chances are, they pay more taxes than citizens of equal means, without getting nearly as many benefits.
<sarcasm> yes, given that they earn money in the lowest tax bracket, they definitely spend enough money on purchases to make up for in in sales tax. they pay even more in sales tax than americans earning similar amounts, in spite of not having to pay federal or state income taxes. </sarcasm>
i'm not sure what is worse: your lack of any insight, or slashdot's rating of the post as insightful.
Totally. I think we should send this story to all those Southern/conservative politicians trying to deny public education and benefits to children of illegal immigrants.