“I built a fusion reactor in my bedroom – AMA” • Hacker News Board

Re: “I built a fusion reactor in my bedroom – AMA”

#131

Post by eggy » Wed, Jul 20, 2016, 8:40 AM UTC

facepalm wrote: post #102

eggy wrote: post #74

Amazing work by this young man! My children will love this. My son and daughter are both doing well, but my son loves to experiment outside of school. I have been encouraging my son to experiment and learn, and he has taken it to a higher level than I had imagined. I have bought him a telescope, and a 3D printer over the years. He works for his own equipment and supplies too. More each year. Some of his experiments o…

What would happen if he skipped on the homework?

Not sure, but I think it still counts as a percentage of your grade. I see where you are going with this, and frankly, if it accounts for 10 to 15% of the final grade, he would have a 90 or 85 grade, since he is doing so well. It would take away options for university if he decides to go here in the U.S.

Re: “I built a fusion reactor in my bedroom – AMA”

#132

Post by etruong42 » Wed, Jul 20, 2016, 8:28 PM UTC

Hypothetically, if you were the parent of such a child (or such an adult offspring), how should you make sure that they stay safe if what they are working on is beyond your capacity to evaluate?

Re: “I built a fusion reactor in my bedroom – AMA”

#133

Post by nlh » Wed, Jul 20, 2016, 8:46 PM UTC

djb_hackernews wrote: post #118

nlh wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And at least from my experience, that is wrong wrong wrong. I was a solidly B student in high school, but I had some extracurriculars (not quite building fusion reactors) that I devoted an absurd amount of time to and excelled at. And I got into MIT.

You must have gone to a pretty good school district because the school district I was in was so bad many elite schools told us not to bother even if you were valedictorian. The quality of education couldn't be trusted to indicate possible future success at their institutions.

That's interesting - never heard anything like that. Where did you go to high school? The idea of elite schools saying not to bother doesn't sit right with me - a lot of the top schools pride themselves on finding diamonds in the rough, and that would run counter to that.

Re: “I built a fusion reactor in my bedroom – AMA”

#134

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jul 22, 2016, 4:02 PM UTC

naasking wrote: post #40

50CNT wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a strict no "high-anything" rule for my basement bedroom. No high temperatures, no high voltages, no high amperages, no high velocity, no high pressure, no high vacuum, no high anything :(. At least I made my desktop sound like a jet engine, so that's something.

At least you can still experiment with vacuum pressures!

[deleted]