November 2009
The medal still hung on the wall of my room, next to the drawings I had made during the summer. Every time I came in, I saw it shining under the lamplight, a reminder that I had been capable of doing something worthwhile. But it wasn't the medal that kept me awake at night. It was the check. The five hundred dollars I had won in the competition, plus the savings I had accumulated since I arrived in this world, totaled eight hundred forty-three dollars and seventy cents.
It wasn't much. But it was a start.
That night, after dinner, I sat at my desk with a new notebook I had bought at the stationery store. On the first page, I wrote: "Investment Plan - 2011." Beneath it, I drew a line and started doing the math.
At age 16 (2011):
Current savings: $843.70
Part-time job (estimated): $200/month x 24 months = $4,800
Total estimated: $5,643.70
It wasn't a fortune. But in my previous life, I had seen how companies like Apple, Google, and Amazon had started in garages with less money than I was going to have. The difference wasn't the capital. It was the idea.
And I had an idea.
The Idea
It didn't come overnight. It grew over weeks as I adjusted the robotic arm, wrote code with Alex, watched the programming tutorials I had downloaded from the internet. The world was changing. Phones were becoming smart, computers were getting smaller, technology was seeping into every corner of daily life. And I, who had seen the future from my previous life, knew where everything was heading.
But I didn't want to build what others were already building. I didn't want to make yet another phone app or yet another photo-sharing website. I wanted to do something that helped people. Something that made life easier. Something no one else was doing.
The idea came one afternoon while I was helping Earl at the workshop. We were repairing an old wheelchair, the kind you push with your hands, and Earl was complaining that the design was archaic, that motors were too expensive, that the people who needed them couldn't afford them.
"What's needed," Earl said, wiping his hands with a rag, "is a system that fits any chair. Something you can buy separately, that doesn't cost an arm and a leg, and that you can install yourself without being an engineer."
"Like a kit," I said.
"Like a kit," he repeated. "But no one does it because it's not a business. Because the people who need these things don't have money."
Earl went to look for a part, and I stayed looking at the chair, my head full of ideas. A motorization kit for wheelchairs. Something cheap, easy to install, that could adapt to any model. Something that could change the lives of people who had lost their mobility.
That night, in my notebook, I wrote: "Project: Mobility for All." Beneath it, I started drawing sketches.
The first drawings were rough, clumsy. But with each version, my strokes became more precise, my ideas clearer. The Artist path, which had been latent since the system left, allowed me to see what others didn't see. The lines of force, the points of support, the way weight was distributed on the wheels.
Alex came by one afternoon and found me with the notebook open, my fingers stained with graphite, an expression of absolute concentration on my face.
"What are you doing?" she asked, sitting beside me on the bed.
"A project. For when I turn sixteen."
"The business?"
"The business."
I showed her the sketches. She looked at them in silence, flipping through the pages with fingers that didn't tremble, her eyes fixed on every line.
"It's a motorization system for wheelchairs," she said. It wasn't a question.
"Something cheap, easy to install, that adapts to any model."
"And how are you going to do it?"
"I don't know yet. I'm in the idea phase."
Alex closed the notebook and handed it back to me.
"When you have the prototype, I'll help you test it," she said.
"You're going to be my guinea pig?"
"I'm going to be your partner. Someone has to write the code."
I smiled. "I thought you were going to be an astronaut."
"That's for when I grow up. For now, I have time."
Alex started coming over more often after that. Not just to help me with the robotic arm, but to work on the project. We spent afternoons in my room, computers on, notebooks open, writing lines of code that we reviewed again and again until they worked.
"The problem is the controls," Alex said one afternoon, her fingers on the keyboard, her brow furrowed. "The system has to be intuitive. Someone who's never used a computer has to be able to operate it."
"Like a lever," I said. "Or a joystick."
"A joystick is very expensive and breaks easily."
"Then simpler controls. Big buttons that can be used with gloves or with wet hands."
Alex looked at me. "Wet hands?"
"People who use wheelchairs also cook. Also wash dishes. Live their lives. The system has to adapt to them, not them to the system."
She fell silent. And then, with a smile that hid nothing, she said: "Sometimes you say very smart things."
"Sometimes I do very smart things. Like winning robotics competitions."
"That was once. And I helped."
"That's why I won."
She didn't say anything, but her fingers found mine on the keyboard and stayed there, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
My mother noticed I'd stopped spending money on nonsense. I wasn't buying more books than I could read, wasn't ordering pizza on Friday nights, wasn't buying new clothes even though I needed them.
"Leo," Susan said one night at dinner. "Are you saving for something?"
"A project," I replied. "For when I turn sixteen."
"What kind of project?"
"A company I want to build."
Mark put down his fork. "A company? With what money?"
"With the prize money. And with what I can save from working."
"Working? Where?"
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Leo had a plan. Eight hundred forty-three dollars. A wheelchair motorization kit. An idea that could change lives.
Alex became his partner. She would write the code. He would build the prototype.
And Earl, from his workshop, said: "When you have it, I'll help you assemble them. As many as you want."
Do you think Leo is focusing more on his scientific side because it helps him get closer to Alex, or because he truly wants to create things that help people? 🤖💡❤️
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