{"id":518,"date":"2011-01-26T15:29:33","date_gmt":"2011-01-26T20:29:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/example.org\/the-young-life-of-riley-"},"modified":"2011-01-26T15:29:33","modified_gmt":"2011-01-26T20:29:33","slug":"the-young-life-of-riley","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/solidworksblog\/2011\/01\/the-young-life-of-riley.html","title":{"rendered":"The young life of Riley"},"content":{"rendered":"

Riley Lewis, 13 and a quarter years old, is an archery instructor, jazz flutist, blacksmith (in the Victorian style), inventor, and the youngest known user of SolidWorks software. After a 15-minute chat, you want to add genius <\/em>to the list, but there\u2019s no value in setting apart a bright, articulate, engaging, impressive young man like this. We need him. \"Riley\"<\/a><\/p>\n

He\u2019s quite clearly having the time of his life here at SolidWorks World 2011<\/a> among thousands of fellow inventors. When we found him in the Partner Pavilion, he was fiddling with a new 3Dconnexion<\/a> mouse he got in return for an impromptu demo he gave at their booth.
<\/a><\/p>\n

The seventh-grader at Discovery Charter School<\/a> in San Jose, Calif., discovered SolidWorks at age 11 when Google SketchUp just wasn\u2019t cutting it for him. For a school project, he\u2019d been modeling a prototype of a device that would clear space junk out of the sky. The prototype included a cantilever arm made of PVC, which turned out to flex too much. \u201cSolidWorks,\u201d he says, \u201ccould have told us that ahead of time and saved us fifty bucks and two months.\u201d<\/p>\n

About the same time, professional engineer Elise Moss<\/a> visited his school and offered students a chance to use SolidWorks. Riley, more than anyone, glommed on to it. With the help of SolidWorks materials definition capabilities, his team ended up replacing the PVC pipe with an aluminum pool pole and a special quick-release mechanism Riley designed. That helped his team earn fourth place in a competition<\/a> involving 250 teams in three age categories. \u201cIt was pretty important for us to use SolidWorks in that competition,\u201d Riley says. \u201cI had been using Google SketchUp for a while and found it wooden and limited. SolidWorks had so many options and the usability was great.\u201d<\/p>\n

Okay, cool, that explains why he\u2019s using SolidWorks, but why was an 11-year-old cadding things up in the first place?<\/p>\n

\u201cI love being creative,\u201d he says, almost levitating from his chair in the Internet Caf\u00e9. \u201cI\u2019ve been building stuff since age four. It doesn\u2019t matter what it is, any medium, I will be able to build something in it.\u201d You believe him.<\/p>\n

His first creation was a tower of blocks with a catapult on top. It was evidently a fully functioning one. \u201cI managed to whack my brother in the nose with it.\u201d Later, Riley built a writing device based on a Victorian draftsman\u2019s pen. And now? \u201cI want to bring my latest prototype to market. It\u2019s an unpickable lock.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yes, he picks locks. He taught himself using what he calls online \u201ccurriculums,\u201d some from MIT. He can very completely, precisely and convincingly explain how his lock design is better; it goes over your head, however, if you\u2019re not as technical as you\u2019d like to be. He knows of no picks that can defeat his design and no other locks that are unpickable.<\/p>\n

We mention a lock brand.<\/p>\n

\u201cGive me five seconds,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n

He\u2019s just as agile with a bow. He says he can skewer a grapefruit with an arrow at 70 yards. He proud of that, but he\u2019s generous with his acumen. He loves helping doubtful newbies learn to hit bull\u2019s eyes.<\/p>\n

He\u2019d also like to help some other folks \u2013 like, you know, folks making locks. Maybe their customers would like them to be unpickable. Maybe Riley's design is worth a look. We got 15 minutes with him, and it\u2019s 15 minutes we wouldn\u2019t trade. We need him. And as with the bow and arrow, he can\u2019t miss.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Riley Lewis, 13 and a quarter years old, is an archery instructor, jazz flutist, blacksmith (in the Victorian style), inventor, and the youngest known user of SolidWorks software. After a 15-minute chat, you want to add genius to the list,<\/p>\n... Continued<\/a>","protected":false},"author":92,"featured_media":2569,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,17,86],"tags":[19,554],"class_list":["post-518","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-customer-stories","category-education","category-solidworks-world","tag-solidworks-2","tag-solidworks-world-2011"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/solidworksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/solidworksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/solidworksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/solidworksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/92"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/solidworksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=518"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/solidworksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/solidworksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2569"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/solidworksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/solidworksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/solidworksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}