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INTERVIEW: Cody Smith on Inventions

Posted on 10. Mar, 2009 by Charles Tsai in I-Inspiration, Inventions

Cody, 17, is one of the first entrants in the Invent Your World challenge.  His entry is TruV, a “vision enhancement system” that would help more than 40 million people who are visually impaired. Cody, himself, is legally blind. The device mashes different technology together to let users see distant objects through “video glasses.”

1) Describe the moment when you first thought of yourself as an inventor.  What happened?

The moment when I first considered myself an inventor was when I started writing my patent. As I was looking through the pages or required documents and what I would be required do in order to document my progress the idea that I had become an inventor and that this project had really taken off sank in. It let me sit back for a second with a smile on my face, then I got back to work…

2) How did the idea for TruV come about?

As I got older I became more aware of my disability. When I was told that I couldn’t drive the fact that this disability was really a disability sank in. I then became more aware (through research) that I wasn’t the only one that was visually impaired.

One day my grandparents bought my family a camcorder. While playing with it I quickly realized that I could use the 32x zoom to see and more importantly read text from further away. The gears in my mind started to turn; I knew that technology could fix this issue, or at least help. However after hours of research I found that a low-vision aid that did anything close to what I wanted simply didn’t exist.

For a while I became angry at the system. I knew that there wasn’t a good market for low-vision aids so of course no corporation would waste their time developing one. I had always know that the tech to let me drive would be around in the next ten years or within ten years the cars could drive themselves but ten years is way too far off.

Why stand by and wait when I already had figured out the “how” part of the equation? If anyone was going to solve this issue it should be someone who knows it all too well.

3) What’s the greatest challenge in this project?

There are many great challenges that must be overcome for the TruV project to work. I feel that the programming will be difficult, we are high schoolers working with code for a new platform . We are attempting to do things that haven’t been done on this platform.

4) Which inventors do you find most inspirational?  Why?

Dean Kamen. Dean Kamen is a man who has sold his soul to too many projects designed to help the needy. He is a revolutionary thinker and a selfless man.

5) What do you think are the three essential qualities or skills of a great inventor?

As an inventor you absolutely have to be able to think outside the box. Sometimes we are required to think way outside the box. In this day you must be in tune with technology. For example, the inventors of the 21st century aren’t making the wheel, we’re re-inventing a smarter wheel that can detect when its pressure is low and notify you.

6) Why are you so passionate about being an inventor?

I’ve been building stuff since I was able to walk. Throughout my childhood I was a Lego fanatic. It was a dream to enter robotics competitions. Since then I’ve lived that dream, I’ve been to robotics competitions around the country and placed high in a few. Now it’s time to enter the real world and solve some of the issues we face. Back to the question… Why am I so passionate? What drives me? I have absolutely no idea but I know that I can utilize that drive to accomplish great things.

7) In the years to come, what issue or problem would you like to tackle with your inventive spirit?

I don’t want to put my efforts towards well known crushing problems like global warming. We have thousands of very intelligent people working on that and other problems like it. I would like to tackle the lesser known problems that affect us here in the United States. What exactly will I do? Well I hope to work on projects like Artificial Intelligents or AI, new ways of circuitry (IE. 3D printed circuits on flexible surfaces), etc.

Related Post:
VENTURE: TruV (True Vision)

Tags: interviews, USA