[bb123]

Does anyone else approach these "teen invents x" or "wiz kid middle schooler discovers y" articles with extreme skepticism? About half the time the invention turns out to be bogus or trivial, and in the other half it comes to light the parents were behind it.

[ssewell]

I, for one, am one of those people. However, after watching a few minutes of the linked video, I'm convinced (and pleasantly surprised) that Caleb has firm grasp on his design, and honestly sounds like he was the driving force behind his own particular implementation.

[kartben_]

This. Thanks for taking the time to watch the video to form your own opinion!

[hwillis]

If you watch the video it's very apparent that the kid deeply knows how everything works. If he did not make this entire (very impressive) project himself, he certainly could have. He understands how chemicals interact with the various gas sensors (used limonene, pine and seed oils as test substances), how the model works, how to grow fungus in a sterile environment to get training data, how to get an API together to service the device...

[2pEXgD0fZ5cF]

I agree, these clickbait articles are rarely honest and most of them reek of parents trying to turn their children into (internet) celebreties.

Also I noticed that they typically employ a very common pattern in which the headline makes a truly big claim (e.g. "10 year old invents cheap way to purify any water source"), then afterwards it turns out that this claim is far from accurate (e.g. the child did not invent it himself, had massive help and while the solution technically works it is in not feasible at all in the way the headline suggests).

Once it is noticed that the claim is false in the way it is presented the article then gets defended by pointing out that a child that young coming into contact with such a project is still impressive, which is again technically true but ultimately comes off as a dishonest deflection.

[MisterBastahrd]

The international science fair is a good example. I grew up with a couple of people who would participate every year, and every year it was obvious from their academics and being in the same classrooms and social circles as them that they didn't come up with this stuff. Their projects were gigantic, expertly researched, and featured technology that no high school student in the pre-internet age would have been able to source or use independently. One of them had a single mother with a PhD in the field, the other had a science teacher mother and a father with an MS in biomedical engineering... in the same field.

[colechristensen]

Yeah it's usually "adult who knows how to do a thing presents kid with all of the pieces and guidance to make it happen". Which is great, you should do that for kids, but the articles about it usually make one cringe.

[wjp3]

I'm immediately reminded of the science fair projects in elementary school where it was clearly obvious that the parent did all of the work.

[ajsnigrutin]

> turns out to be bogus

Sometimes very bogus, even totally fake

example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otjvUz7qKXc ('free energy' device, "invented" by a kid, debunked by electroboom)

[cmaneu]

Did you watch the video linked in the article?

[wesleywt]

Specific, sensitivity, limits of detection and limits of quantitation is more important than a video.

[kartben_]

Interestingly, those are all very good points, all of which are being covered ...in the video.

[oh_sigh]

Yup. There's very little drawback to just disregarding any article which highlights a person's youth and their amazing accomplishments. Same reason to avoid "30 under 30" type articles as well. You're playing the game those people want you to play by ingesting those articles, and I see no need to engage myself in other people's "grinding".

[skocznymroczny]

Yes, seems like people really want to believe stories of teenagers suddenly making breakthrough discoveries. In this case it's probably having some sensors with data, throwing them into a neural network and getting good results on a training set. The question is, does it work at all on real world data...

[munificent]

I think the important part is to understand that the primary goal here is not to advance science. We have lots of adult scientists with better education, time, equipment doing that.

It's to improve the pipeline of kids excited to go into science by making science accessible, rewarding, and prestigious.

[DantesKite]

Yes, but if you listen to the video, it's clear Caleb has a clear understanding of what's going on.

His vocabulary rivals that of a 20 year old software engineer. It's pretty impressive.

[rocgf]

Yes, always, since it's exaggerated more often than not.

[thatcat]

I mean this is a cool application, but not original idea. Gas/particulate sensors are used in ag to detect fungal spore concentration zones for spot treatment by looking for a specific particle size using the laser in the sensor. The worst part about these type articles is that they don't even cover the design usually so you can't tell if it's a novel idea or not. This one features hand drawn diagram with some incubator system, I guess it's for training purposes but idk. Mostly it seems like this is an advertorial for Microsoft AI.