Synopses & Reviews
That Monday afternoon, in high-school gyms across America, kids were battling for the only glory American culture seems to want to dispense to the young these days:
sports glory. But at Dos Pueblos High School in Goleta, California, in a gear-cluttered classroom, a different type of “cool” was brewing. A physics teacher with a dream – the first public high-school teacher ever to win a MacArthur Genius Award -- had rounded up a band of high-I.Q. students who wanted to put their technical know-how to work. If you asked these brainiacs what the stakes were that first week of their project, they’d have told you it was all about winning a robotics competition – building the ultimate robot and prevailing in a machine-to-machine contest in front of 25,000 screaming fans at Atlanta’s Georgia Dome.
But for their mentor, Amir Abo-Shaeer, much more hung in the balance.
The fact was, Amir had in mind a different vision for education, one based not on rote learning -- on absorbing facts and figures -- but on active creation. In his mind’s eye, he saw an even more robust academy within Dos Pueblos that would make science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) cool again, and he knew he was poised on the edge of making that dream a reality. All he needed to get the necessary funding was one flashy win – a triumph that would firmly put his Engineering Academy at Dos Pueblos on the map. He imagined that one day there would be a nation filled with such academies, and a new popular veneration for STEM – a “new cool” – that would return America to its former innovative glory.
It was a dream shared by Dean Kamen, a modern-day inventing wizard – often-called “the Edison of his time” – who’d concocted the very same FIRST Robotics Competition that had lured the kids at Dos Pueblos. Kamen had created FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) nearly twenty years prior. And now, with a participant alumni base approaching a million strong, he felt that awareness was about to hit critical mass.
But before the Dos Pueblos D’Penguineers could do their part in bringing a new cool to America, they’d have to vanquish an intimidating lineup of “super-teams”– high-school technology goliaths that hailed from engineering hot spots such as Silicon Valley, Massachusetts’ Route 128 technology corridor, and Michigan’s auto-design belt. Some of these teams were so good that winning wasn’t just hoped for every year, it was expected.
In The New Cool, Neal Bascomb manages to make even those who know little about – or are vaguely suspicious of – technology care passionately about a team of kids questing after a different kind of glory. In these kids’ heartaches and headaches – and yes, high-five triumphs -- we glimpse the path not just to a new way of educating our youth but of honoring the crucial skills a society needs to prosper. A new cool.
Review
"Imagination, ambition and technology collide at an annual high-school robot-building competition....A nail-biting thrill ride for techies and armchair engineers." Kirkus Reviews
Review
"Gripping....Bascomb shows the reader every angle of a classroom no larger than the average storage space, bursting with tensions, emotions, and unparalleled enthusiasm....The New Cool is a tale of triumph both in and outside of the classroom....[I]t gives me hope for the future of education."
Erin Gruwell, author of the #1 New York Times bestselling Freedom Writer's Diary
Review
"The New Cool masterfully involves the reader in the thrills and the agonies experienced by high-school students building a robot for a national competition. Neal Bascomb not only tells their totally engaging story but also captures the essence of what it means to be immersed in a real-life engineering project, complete with its conflicting constraints, limited budgets, and imminent deadlines." Henry Petroski, author of The Essential Engineer
Synopsis
The FIRST robotics competition, started by genius inventor Dean Kamen in hopes of jump-starting American innovation and creating the next generation's version of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, has become a worldwide phenomenon and regularly spurs students and teachers to accomplishments they never dreamed possible.
In The New Cool, acclaimed author Neal Bascomb follows one ragtag team of high school competitors who are led by a charismatic physics teacher named Amir Abo-Shaeer (Abo-Shaeer is the first high school teacher to win the MacArthur Genius Award). In a marathon effort of sixteen-hour days and mind-bending engineering hurdles, the team struggles to build their robot and fight their way toward the national championship. As the season progresses, these ordinary students thanks in large part to one extraordinary teacher discover untapped reserves of resourcefulness and strength.
The New Cool is not just the story of the FIRST program and what it means for an America struggling to extend its heritage of entrepreneurship and innovation it also portrays some of our nation's brightest young people as they struggle to overcome challenges both intellectual and emotional, live out the agony and ecstasy of competition, and ultimately achieve more than they ever dreamed.
About the Author
Neal Bascomb has published a number of international and national bestsellers, including Higher, The Perfect Mile, Red Mutiny and Hunting Eichmann. His books have been optioned for film, featured in several documentaries and translated in 10 languages. He has also written for the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Los Angeles Times. He and his wife and their two daughters make their home in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.