PREMIER EVENT: JOSHUA DAVIS in conversation with Wired magazine's MARK ROBINSON

Credit: Sebastian Mlynarski

 

 

 


Joshua Davis in conversation with Wired magazine's Mark Robinson

Tuesday, January 13, 7:30pm

Spare Parts: Four Undocumented Teenagers, One Ugly Robot, and the Battle for the American Dream

Tickets are available at Kepler's and online at Brown Paper Tickets

Student tickets are available! 

 

Join us for an evening with Joshua Davis, the author of Spare Parts, the book that tells the incredible story of a team of undocumented Mexican American students who win a national robotics competition against all odds.

From Carl Hayden High, a scrappy, underfunded public school in West Phoenix, the newly formed robotics team, under the guidance of two unconventional teachers, took part in a national, NASA-sponsored underwater robotics competition. A seemingly classic underdog story, the Carl Hayden team beat out not only other better funded high schools with top-notch robotics programs, but also college teams, including a team of students from MIT.

Set against the backdrop of urban desert decay, a faltering school system, and our country’s cutthroat immigration policies, this becomes more than a book about triumph, it reveals the startling truth about what it means to be an American and where we will find the next generation of talent.

The book is soon to be adapted into a major motion picture starring George Lopez, Marisa Tomei, Jamie Lee Curtis, and others. We will be holding an exclusive screening of a clip from the movie. Click HERE to view the trailer.

Joshua Davis is an SF-based contributing editor for Wired magazine, a Stanford alum, and the cofounder of Epic magazine (www.epicmagazine.com). He is the author of The Underdog: How I Survived the World’s Most Outlandish Competitions, a memoir about his experiences as an arm wrestler, backward runner, and matador. In 2014, his work for Wired was nominated for a National Magazine Award for feature writing. He has also written for The New Yorker and other periodicals, and his writing is anthologized in the 2012 edition of Best American Science and Nature Writing, as well as in the 2006, 2007, and 2009 editions of Best Technology Writing.

In more than a decade at Wired, Mark Robinson has served as a senior editor, articles editor, and, now, features editor. Robinson attended Stanford’s master’s program in communication.

Event date: 
Tuesday, January 13, 2015 - 7:30pm
Event address: 
1010 El Camino Real
94025-4349 Menlo Park
us