Hacker News Reader

Comment by sevenfive | Hacker News Reader

> In September of 2015, 14-year-old Ahmed Mohamed showed up to his high school with a clock he’d made himself

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CEmSwJTqpgY

More like he took apart a walmart alarm clock and glued the parts to a mini suitcase (Described by the media as a "pencil case")

View on HN

Since this gets discussed to death, I think it's worth pointing out that it's relevance to the article is not what he did but the public reaction that young science/engineering/math interests ought to be encouraged in anyone with the interest. Whether his clock was worthy of that attention is independent of that, and it's kinda a shame the article starts with a highly distracting controversial example.

Right, no-one thought he had a bomb (proof: they didn't evacuate). They thought he had made a Hollywood-style imitation bomb for reasons of a prank. And that is not an appropriate prank to play in a school in the current climate.

No you missed my point! It doesn't matter what happened that day, all that matters is that it became a national phenomenon to praise the ideal of a child scientist.

I seem to remember something about his sister claiming the entire thing was a PR stunt- that they purposefully make headlines look like "brown child brings in sketchy electronic device, racists call him terrorist" to get on the news. Anyone know what became of them? Last I heard they moved to Saudi Arabia.

Yes, they are currently suing a large number of people in the US. I cannot say whether the who thing was a PR stunt or not but the limited stuff I read in the press seemed to suggest he was pushing the issue harder than justified.

> I seem to remember something about his sister claiming the entire thing was a PR stunt

Do you have a link?

It was a political statement not a scientific one. Ironically, and most likely lost on that family, is how important politics and marketing is to modern science.

That's a lot of saltiness over a kid who took apart a clock and re-assembled it without breaking it, following in the steps of Richard Feynman.

The saltiness isn't over what he did, but that he claimed to do something he didn't do. He did not build a clock as he claimed. He moved a commercially available alarm clock from one case to another. If he designed the logic and built it out of logic gates/a PLD or even built a kit, he could have legitimately claimed he built a clock. But he didn't.

Why are you so upset by the project of a 14 year old? It wasn't as complex as a child thought it was, who cares?

You must be completely ignoring the context and the media response that followed. Even President Obama cared enough about it invite him to White House.

Because he got handcuffed. Not because the project itself was worthy of attention from the President.

He got invited to the White House to provide counterbalance to the social idea that brown-skinned kids with beeping electronics are criminals that should have the cops called on them.

The simplicity of the project makes the reaction of the school worse not better.

> Because he got handcuffed.

He actually asked them to handcuff him and then take his picture because he said it would look cool. Look at the picture, the police officers are smiling in the background. He played them.

None of this is true. He didn't ask them to handcuff him and no one is smiling in the picture:

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/texas-teen-arreste...

http://edition.cnn.com/2015/09/16/us/texas-student-ahmed-mus...

He was arrested and taken off school grounds. Next time please do your own research.

The police should not have been there at all, since the device is so obviously not dangerous.

The context is about whether race influenced police to deny his rights. How does the complexity of his wiring project matter at all?

I believe the people above are arguing that his intent was to create a prank more so than to create a clock by moving a clock from its original case to a suitcase which is how bombs look often on TV. Along with that argument, people would often argue that Steve Wozniak spent a night in jail for building a fake bomb around the same age. They would also often argue that Wozniak is a white male & therefore would argue against race having anything to do with this; especially in the current tense climate in regards to bombs compared to the climate when Wozniak was in school.

I can't speak for the others, but I don't care about whether or not his intent was to come up with a hoax device. I saw the pictures, immediately recognized it as something that was commercially produced, and then saw Obama praise his ingenuity, MIT invite him to campus, and all sorts of companies send him free stuff, all based on the lie that he actually built something.

There's nothing wrong with taking things apart to figure out how they work. I did the same thing at his age. But I wasn't pretending I built them. And we shouldn't hold his actions up as something to emulate.

That isn't to say I'm not concerned with the overreaction teachers, administrators and police had to the device. As far as I'm aware, the only reaction that they should have had—hey, that device has exposed mains!—didn't happen.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com