B.C. boy creates rocket company to inspire hands-on learning
VICTORIA — After he gestures to his mom's 'normal' garden filled with flowers, Alex Rose reveals his garden, which is populated by prototypes.
'Here we have the Rocket Garden,' the 13-year-old points to a series of handmade rockets rising from the ground, beginning with one that's burnt.
'That's SJ-1,' Alex touches its singed top. 'It's a little crispy.'
Before Alex reveals how this rocket got roasted, his mom Amanda says the seeds of Alex's garden were planted when the boy taught himself how to code software at age seven and constructed his first AI powered robot by nine.
'He thinks outside the box,' Amanda says. 'And just finds a way to make his ideas happen.'
Like when Alex was 11 and programmed a robot to stop people from feeling lonely.
'It recognized if anyone was crying,' Alex said at the time. 'And would say words of encouragement.'
After selling a few of those robots, which was part of the business plan he devised in middle school to build his own tech company, Alex invested the profits into making rockets.
'Rocketry is hard,' Alex says. 'I made the mistake of thinking it was easy. It's not.'
It's certainly not easy to teach kids in school, because a typical rocket's explosive propulsion is potentially dangerous.
'Launching rockets was not really part of the curriculum,' Amanda says. 'So, Alex just came up with other ways to do it.'
Which brings us back to the Rocket Garden's burnt bloom, which Alex found a way to successfully launch without explosives, before an overheated circuit board made it burst into flames.
'Once the rockets flies, I say it's obsolete,' Alex says. 'There's lessons from that we're going to put into the next one.'
So Alex found a way to insulate the next rocket, created a new battery-powered system, built a mini jet-style propulsion engine, and coded an application to operate it all.
Before he installs it inside the SJ-2 rocket 'growing' in the garden, he's testing the components on a pair of kitchen chairs.
'Most aerospace companies don't have a chair to launch their rockets,' Alex says.
But then again, most companies are not what Alex has named TORI, and acronym for the Teaching Of Rockets Initiative.
'Most people don't have the money to fly out to Florida to watch the real rockets,' Alex says. 'So, if we could bring smaller model rockets into schools, that would be amazing.'
Once the Rocket Garden is populated with more prototypes, and Alex has mastered how to make simple, safe rockets, he's planning to produce the components in his shed, and share them with teachers across the region, so other students can be inspired through hands-on learning.
The 13-year-old says the reason for all his work is simple.
'If you solve a problem and you have the answer, why wouldn't you give that to someone else in need?'
Because along with a growing his big brain, Alex is cultivating an even bigger heart.
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