Thursday, February 28, 2013

All a Kid Needs is ... Not Much of Anything

Here's a kid, Richard Turere, who was tending his family's cattle when he was nine years old.  He hated lions because they would take some of his family's animals during the night and he couldn't stop them.  By age 13 he had devised a system that would scare off the lions and his family hasn't lost a single head of cattle since.  There are now seventy-five other families using his system to keep the lions away and he has been invited to speak at the TED 2013 conference in California.  (CNN:  Boy scares off lions with a flashy invention)

Oh yeah, so how did he do it.  He had almost nothing as he's a member of a Maasai tribe out in the middle of nowhere.  He connected some LEDs on some poles to an old car battery and a solar panel.  The LEDs flicker and this gives the impression of someone walking with a light and this scares off the lions.

It's amazing what a kid can do when he's not frittering away his time on video games, cellphones, or any of the other mindrotting gimcrackery of the developed nations.  Kids are supposed to get bored.  This is what makes them think!  All they need is a chance!

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