How spare parts movie inspired me as an engineer

tharaka Ariyarathna
2 min readJul 4, 2021

First I want to define this movie became one of my favorite. This inspired me a lot as an engineer. I learned so many things from this. Hardworking, determination, dedication, collaboration, coordinating, and many more things. As an engineer this movie is not just a movie this is a lecture and a lesson.
This is a smart, creative, and interesting drama about a team of smart, intelligent, determined, and ambitious high school students who enter a robotics competition, and their mentor who is their science teacher.
As engineers what we have to do is implement solutions to problems and create them in the real world. For those in the movie, they did that and believed in their process which is a key factor in every engineer’s career.
Also, most of the characters in the movie are immigrants. That adds extra color to it with their life struggles and everything. The way they balance everything and succeeding in the things they believe in life is heart-touching.
The kids, led by Oscar and, eventually, continually guided and steered by dedicated and increasingly involved teacher, Fredi Cameron, who initially had doubts about leading the group, literally use spare parts and the very little money and stuff they collected to build their robot. They spend afternoons and evenings after school going over their drawings, their sketches, their plans, their thoughts, their ideas, and their dreams to build this. They learn dozens of lessons along the way. The kids, and Cameron, movingly learn about themselves, about working together as a team, about growing up and maturing, about hard work, about studying, about working toward and for a dream, about working to escape their dire situations in life, about working for a better life, about working to better themselves in all areas, and about learning what it means to work together as a team to reach a very real, very obtainable dream. And that mentioned stuff is really important not only to an engineer but to everyone.
Eventually, the kids, always reliable and positive and quick-thinking, overcome a host of obstacles, they build their underwater robot with that little money and those very real spare parts, they travel to the competition, they enter the competition, and achieve what they always wanted. But not with ease. Even throughout the competition, their belief kept them in it and finally they achieve their dream.
As an engineer, this is a must-watch movie. There are tons of things to take. Not only for an engineer but for all people, this is what it takes to achieve your dream.

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