Illegal Immigrants Take on MIT

This is an amazing story about how some illegal immigrant high school kids from the Phoenix area won a nationwide underwater robotics competition that included MIT students. The best part is that they incorporated tampons into their robot.

When Luis lowered Stinky [their robot] into the water for their run, Lorenzo prayed to the Virgin Mary. He prayed that the tampons would work but then wondered if the Virgin got her period and whether it was appropriate for him to be praying to her about tampons. He tried to think of a different saint to pray to but couldn’t come up with an appropriate one. The whir of Stinky’s propellers brought him back to the task at hand, extracting a water sample from a submerged container.

Because the kids are “undocumented” they would have to pay out of state tutition to go to a state school. One had planned to join the army after 4 years of ROTC to find that his status prevented that. There’s an online collection to help with tuition costs.