Isabella (Bel) is half-Filipino. She has two older brothers (Luke and Gabe), an ER-nurse mom, and a hobbyist dad who has seemingly every tool imaginable in his shed.
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Luke (the oldest) has always loved fixing up cars with their dad (and sometimes, Bel even joined and learned a thing or two). Luke started college (playing baseball), but after he got put on academic probation, he decided to drop out for good. After all, all he wants to be is a mechanic.
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Gabe (the middle child) is an academic genius. Fittingly, he goes to an Ivy League.
Isabella’s parents got divorced right before her senior year of high school (since her dad was cheating, presumably with multiple women?).
Because Bel is a 17-year-old minor, it’s decided that she should go live with her mom in a somewhat nearby apartment. Bel’s mom is determined to provide for her as best as she can, so she sends Bel to a private high school for her senior year. This school is a big step up from Bel’s old school, which didn’t offer many AP classes and where most students were just trying to get by with minimal effort (and thereby only spent their free time by “hanging out” rather than engaging in extracurriculars).
At this school, Bel’s first friend is her “transfer buddy”, Jamie. Bel is jealous of how Jamie seems to have a concrete plan (i.e., become valedictorian, go to an Ivy League, and become a lawyer).
Bel has no idea what college she wants to go to or what she wants to major in, and her lack of planning is immediately exposed when, on just the 3rd week of school, she forgets to do a physics project of designing a catapult (which is worth a big portion of her grade in the class). In the ten minutes before it’s due, she assembles a makeshift catapult with a tape dispenser, water bottles, and a rubber band.
It turns out that Bel’s catapult out-performed everyone else’s (given its power-to-weight ratio). Her physics teacher (Ms. Voss) could tell that Bel did this project in the last minute (relying just on design instincts), so she pulls Bel aside and offers her a choice:
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Accept a “C” (since the report was supposed to consist of more than a scribbled diagram) and have to deal with her mom’s disappointment
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Try living up to her potential by switching to AP Physics and trying out for the robotics team.
Bel reluctantly chooses the second option.
In AP Physics, the teacher (Mr. MacIntosh, aka Mac) seems to favor the boys (maybe since they remind him of his younger self, or since he thinks that physics is more relevant to their futures?). The boys sit closer to his desk, and he immediately helps them as soon as they look even mildly confused. On the other hand, the table of girls (i.e., Jamie, Lora, Neelam, and now Bel) sit at a table on the opposite side of the room in the “Wild West”, so they feel like they have to figure things out on their own more often.
Basically everyone in AP Physics is in the robotics club (except for Jamie, who’s in Mock Trial instead).
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Lora isn’t super interested in the engineering side of things, but she’s the team’s business manager (which she hopes will help her with her plan of studying business in college).
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Neelam seems to have good ideas, but she is very rude. She’s had to grow thick skin over the years since she’s felt like a lot of her ideas get shut down just because she’s a girl.
The reason why Neelam especially doesn’t seem to like Bel is because Bel seems to luck her way into things. After all, Bel even lucks her way into the robotics team without even properly submitting the application! There was only enough budget for one new member. Applicants were supposed to design a vessel in CAD that could protect an egg as it’s dropped. Then, the current robotics team members ran their models in a simulation with an arbitrary amount of force applied. Bel showed up late to tryouts, didn’t download the software beforehand, and merely scribbled down a sketch (in both front and side views) while others presented. Her design featured fins that converted translational rotational energy to rotational kinetic energy. Teo Luna (the team’s president) saw Bel’s design potential and selected her.
Teo is the son of a tech Titan, the equivalent of Mark Zucherburg or Elon Musk. People expect great things from him, so he pushes himself to load his schedule with AP classes AND be the president of the robotics team AND be the captain of the soccer team. He’s the person who doesn’t let anyone down. In an English essay, he compares himself to Atlas, a scientist who carries the weight of the world on his shoulders.
“Atlas carrying the weight of the heavens on his shoulders as punishment for leading the Titans against the gods is, in many ways, similar to any leader asked to bear the consequences of personal responsibility” (37).
There are various bumps in the road throughout the story, such as:
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Teo’s eccentric best friend, Dash, asks out Bel for homecoming before Teo admits to himself that he likes Bel.
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Teo gets sick with the flu at robotics nationals and leaves it up to Bel and Neelam to drive the team's robot.
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Once Bel finally decides that the future she wants is to go to MIT to study ME with Teo, she doesn’t get accepted (which is realistic given how last-minute her application was). She didn’t apply to any safety schools. Teo offers to ask his dad to make a few phone calls and make a donation so that Bel can get in, but she wants to earn her way wherever she goes.
Everything works out in the end since:
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Bel and Neelam win nationals, and they even encourage a girl (who is the sister of one of their competitors).
“‘She didn’t think girls built robots,’ he explains. // ‘Oh, well they do,’ I tell her firmly. .. ‘I mean come on, boys can do it… So how hard can it be?’ // Okay, so it wasn’t wise and the blue team driver rolls his eyes, but hey. His sister smiles brilliantly, and I think that maybe if Neelam and I helped one girl believe she could do it -- and that girl helps another girl -- and then that girl helps someone --” (238).
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Ms. Voss invited both of Bel’s parents to attend nationals, where they bonded over the excitement of the tournament and were proud of Bel.
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Mac realizes how girls can be equally talented at engineering.
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Bel decides to take engineering classes at a community college for free for two years before reapplying to MIT (which also saves her family a lot of money). Until then, Teo and Bel are committed to a long-distance relationship with open and honest communication.
“Maybe life hasn’t always pointed things out to me the way I was expecting, but if I was lucky enough to let the universe catapult me here, then all the hard stuff along the way was worth it” (259).