A Youtuber named Thomas Talbot posted an instructive video laying out reasons why Ahmed “clock boy” Mohamed should not be praised as someone who “invented” anything. Because the kid didn’t do anything but pull the guts out of a commercial clock and stick them in a case. And Talbot feels that the kid did this precisely to cause a panic.
This vide is worth watching…
Here is what Talbot wrote to accompany the video:
This video shows that the supposed clock invention by a 14 year old is in fact not an invention. The ‘clock’ is a commercial bedside alarm clock removed from its casing. There is nothing to indicate that the clock was even assembled by the child. I suspect this was brought into school to create an alarmed reaction.
So, Mark Zuckerberg, Mr. President, Make Magazine (which should know better), and others: You’ve been duped. Please do recognize youths of all backgrounds who create wonderful inventions with electronics. The kid making press around the world did not invent or build a clock.
Response to Make Magazine new statement on this issue: http://makezine.com/2015/09/21/all-makers-have-to-start-somewhere-including-ahmed-mohamed/ I’m the poster of probably the first video about the construction of the ‘clock’, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEmSwJTqpgY (with >600K views) and appreciate your thoughts on the matter.
We’ve now learned that the father is a well known political stuntman who even named his trucking company “twin towers transportation” (mocking 9/11) and it may very well be that this entire incident was engineered – time will tell whether that is true or not.
In that case, Make magazine was seriously duped. With nearly no time to fact check, Make engaged in lots of PR around this, including advertisements for your clock kits.
So, this event in which a youth was detained and then gained notoriety was quite beneficial to your organization. It’s now my opinion that the youth’s actions were designed to trigger exactly what happened.
Since creating a hoax device in Texas is a crime, the school and the police were within reason to detain him, BASED ON HIS ACTIONS AND BEHAVIORS. If they wanted to persecute him, they could have kept him in jail and prosecuted, which they chose not to do.
I agree that everyone starts somewhere. Lavishing gushing praise on undeserved and unremarkable work does nothing to help an aspiring inventor – it also serves to demoralize young people who have achieved considerable accomplishments through hard work learning and building.
A mentor can and should take a young person down the next steps of invention, which requires some honesty. I’d probably praise a 7-8 year old for unboxing a clock but not a high schooler. I hope your event is a good one. If this youth comes to your event, teach him well. After meeting him and his family, you will probably have some insights. Please share them.
This Muslim kid has perpetrated a hoax with the specific goal to push Islamist terror on this country.