Ben returned to school from the nation's capital this afternoon and immediately took in a few minutes of English, even though he wasn't expected back in class.
That's typical behavior for this Salesianum freshman who spent two years researching and five months designing his telepresence robot made from, among other things, a flip-top trash can and a robotic vacuum cleaner.
He didn't get the science genes from dad, he's a singer/songwriter, but was eager to help with his son's project.
"He didn't have a lot of money to work with so he had to be very creative," Ben's father Joseph Lee Hooker said.
Ben's robot allows senior citizens, often confined to their homes, to connect with their family and friends via Skype.
His grandmom was his inspiration.
"Necessity is the mother of invention so I had a problem and I designed something to fix that problem," Ben said. "Both my parents work and she lives too far to walk and she's disabled, so I can use this robot to visit her whenever I want."
President Obama dubbed his robot, "Skype on Wheels." Ben was nominated for the White House Science Fair and won second place and $10,000 in the Broadcom Masters competition.
"When I watched him with the President, he was calm and collected and I was shaking," Ben's mother Bridget Hooker Hylak said.
Ben is still busy with this invention, but is already thinking about his next one – an artificial intelligence robot.
