Fantastic family friendly movie about perseverance and heart. Based on a true story about immigrant high school kids that form a robotics club in an attempt to get a leg up on their next journey in life. They face many obstacles: family, money, no papers, bad attitudes; but they have heart, will, & determination in spades! Lovely movie worth a rental. Fun for the whole family.

Many of the kids attending Carl Hayden High School in Phoenix are undocumented immigrants. One of them is Oscar Vazquez (Carlos PenaVega) who is stopped from applying for the Army. Next, he tries to participate in an underwater robotics competition against some of the best schools in the country. Fredi Cameron (George Lopez) reluctantly accepts being the adviser. He's an out-of-work engineer and the new science substitute teacher. Gwen Kolinsky (Marisa Tomei) is the math teacher and Karen Lowry (Jamie Lee Curtis) is the principal. Oscar recruits computer geek Cristian Arcega and Fredi presses mechanic/thief Lorenzo Santillan to join. The four kids in the group are all illegals.This story is compelling. There may be a little too much melodrama. The family drama and ICE problems are expected. Teacher Cameron's own problems and romantic issues are probably excessive taking away attention from the kids. There is a bit of humor although Lopez is not playing a comedic character. It's a sincere telling of a true story. The competition has some tension although it could be structured better. It's a nice family-friendly story with a timely important issue.

This was a great movie me and the family really enjoyed it great family movie, I recommend this to all.Very inspirational love these kinds of movies that just show you and your kids anything can be possible with a little determination. Not trying to give anything away in the movie not saying they won anything or any outcome more just the great determination and never giving up, that's all its about really.Was in a rush writing this did my best explaining in the few minutes I had, its a great watch hope it inspires somebody have told a lot of friends and family about this one will be watching it again when some family comes to visit...

Based on how this was hyped, it now appears incredibly controversial as to why the Carl Hayden High School won this competition. In the actual underwater challenge they finished 3rd behind MIT which completed the most challenges. So in effect MIT still had the best robot but since the competition also factored in their engineering interview and a review of each group's technical manual they somehow won the entire competition. I am incredibly suspicious that MIT did a worse job in the engineering interview or with their technical manual. Not buying this since at the end of the day the robot that can complete the most challenges should be the winning robot. This challenge is supposed to show who are the better engineers not who are the better salesmen. Sorry but it seems like it was handed to them. Further evidence this is misleading BS. If the Carl Hayden Team was really full of engineering geniuses they would be employed as such. Carl Hayden Team (Luis Aranda, Lorenzo Santillan, Cristian Arcega, Oscar Vazquez) Where are these engineering geniuses now? Luis Aranda (Janitor); Lorenzo Santillan (Line Cook); Cristian Arcega (Worked at Home Depot); Oscar Vazquez (Railroad Foreman)MIT Team (Kurt Stiehl, Lauren Cooney, Jordan Stanway, Thaddeus Stefanov- Wagner) Kurt Stiehl (Product Design Manager at Apple Inc.); Lauren Cooney (Embedded Software Engineer at Teledyne Webb Research); Jordan Stanway (Postdoctoral Fellow at Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute); Thaddeus Stefanov-Wagner (Mechanical Engineer at Bluefin Robotics)