Chase Lewis, 12-year-old home-schooled student, first heard about the famine in Somalia while reading news articles with his mother.
“Refugees often had to walk two to three weeks to get to a refugee center with food and water,” Lewis said in an email. “Sometimes the refugees were so weak, and sometimes the parent had so many kids, that they could no longer carry all their malnourished children.”
“So they left the children on the roadside to die.”
After learning of these children’s fate, Lewis decided to act.
The 12-year-old designed a wheeled travois, a triangular cart that attaches to the wearer’s waist, to assist refugees who face the problem of having to leave children behind.
This past week, Lewis built a prototype out of parachute material, two wheels, a padded belt and an aluminum axle bar. His mother, Michelle Lewis, successfully transported his sister Kristin, who weighs around 70 pounds, with the device.
Although 12 seems young for such a feat, Lewis’ parents first noticed his innovative skills when he was just five years old. His father, Doug Lewis, said that was the age he first started showing interest in both the visible and invisible light spectrum.
“When Chase started reading TIME Magazine on a regular basis and talking to us about events going on in the world, it seemed natural to us,” his father said in an email. “I guess his knowledge, and concern, about what is going on all over the planet is a little unusual for a 12-year-old.”
Lewis attributes part of his abilities and passions to being home-schooled because he has a lot of time to pursue his own projects.
“If I were in school, I would have to spend a lot of time re-learning what I already know,” he said. “As a home-schooled student, I can focus on learning, and trying out, what I don’t know.”
Lewis’ mother agrees.
“I really don’t think they’d have the bandwidth for some of these intense, hands-on projects if they were spending most of their days at a desk in school,” his mother said in an email, referring to Lewis and his nine-year-old sister.
“I plan to put them both into school when they reach 8th grade, but I keep wondering if doing that will squelch their enthusiasm and limit their time for these other types of projects, which end up challenging them in some ways more than school does,” she said.
This year, Chase won first place in Middle School Chemistry at the North Carolina Student Academy of Science’s competition and the North Carolina Science and Engineering Fair for his experiment to see whether the tightness of weave of a nitrocellulose strip would affect the burn rate in grams per second. He also won the Science Award from the U.S. Naval Research Center and has been nominated to advance to nationals.
“These projects are complex enough that he needs not only our advice, but the advice of experts,” Lewis’ mother said. “The Chapel Hill fire marshal gave him advice about his nitrocellulose project. A mechanical engineering professor is giving him advice on his refugee travois.”
Dr. Richard Johnson, a mechanical engineering professor at North Carolina State University, talked to Lewis about his travois. Michelle Lewis said he and his wife came up with alternative applications for the travois including helping remote communities bring their sick or elderly to nearby villages for medical care.
Lewis plans to enter his travois in the 3M/Discovery Challenge for middle school students, which encourages young people to solve everyday problems with science. This year’s theme is related to the way people move, keep themselves healthy and make a difference.
This article was reported as a part of the 253 Reporting course at UNC’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication.
