The New Cool Audiobook by Neal Bascomb

What this episode covers

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/audiobook/33/ to download full audiobooks of your choice for free. Title: The New Cool Subtitle: A Visionary Teacher, His FIRST Robotics Team, and the Ultimate Battle of Smarts Author: Neal Bascomb Narrator: Kirby Heyborne Format: Unabridged Length: 11 hrs and 19 mins Language: English Release date: 03-01-11 Publisher: Random House Audio Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 42 votes Genres: Bios & Memoirs, Science & Technology Leaders Publisher's Summary: 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, theyd 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 Atlantas 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 minds 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 whod 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. 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. PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your My Library section along with the audio. Critic Reviews: "Imagination, ambition and technology collide at an annual high-school robot-building competitionA nail-biting thrill ride for techies and armchair engineers." (Kirkus Reviews) "GrippingBascomb gives us plenty of suspense and pathosAn inspiring homage to the spirit of invention and a genuine sports epic, to boot." (Publishers Weekly) "I love this book. Neal Bascomb cuts through the arcane technical jargon of robotics to reveal an amazing world of smart high-schoolers with passions for math, science, engineering, and computers. The teacher who inspires them also inspires us. With kids like these, there is hope for the world after all." (Charles Petzold, author of CODE)

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