The New Cool: A Visionary Teacher, His FIRST Robotics Team, and the Ultimate Battle of Smarts

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.