A new movie starring Jamie Lee Curtis, George Lopez, Carlos PenaVega and Marisa Tomei about a high-school robotics team makes its debut in theaters nationwide. The movie, Spare Parts, is based on FIRST® Robotics Competition Team 842 - Falcon Robotics, from Carl Hayden Community High School in Phoenix, Arizona, and their famous robotic underdog victory against MIT, which was chronicled in the WIRED magazine article “La Vida Robot” in 2005.
The team, led by FIRST®Senior Mentor Faridodin “Fredi” Lajvardi and currently retired computer science teacher Allan Cameron, was comprised of four students who in 2004 built an underwater robot for the Marine Advanced Technology Education Center's Remotely Operated Vehicle Competition.
Team members discovered a leak shortening the system in their robot, Stinky, during the competition. With limited time and resources, students stuffed the leak with tampons, impressed the judges with their creative problem-solving skills and emerged victoriously from the underwater robotics contest, besting MIT among other college teams.
FIRST® offers a Progression of Programs with leadership opportunities and hands-on experiences in robotics engineering and invention challenges for students in K-12.
