# RO: This is totally going to kill Bring Your Clock to School Day **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [September 16, 2015, 8:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-this-is-totally-going-to-kill-bring-your-clock-to-school-day/731454 "2015-09-16T08:35:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 22
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2015, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-this-is-totally-going-to-kill-bring-your-clock-to-school-day/731454/421 "2015-09-21T13:47:15Z")
What type of genius techie 14-year-old builds _a clock_? Is there something special about this clock? Maybe I’m jaded because I live in Si Valley, but any teenager out here who built a clock would be laughed out of school. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2015, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-this-is-totally-going-to-kill-bring-your-clock-to-school-day/731454/422 "2015-09-21T13:50:24Z")
> [@FXMastermind](#): > > In society there is a maxim of “what if everybody did it?”, in this case, what if every teenager brought a case with electronics in it, and it alarmed during class, and there was no clear and good reason for a jumble of wires and circuit boards to be in a case in your back pack. Woah, deep! I suppose teachers would tell kids specifically not to do that, and then almost all kids, most likely including Ahmed, wouldn’t do that, and the world would keep on spinning. > [@](#): > > Did he act alone and innocently? All signs point to his being a SMERSH operative. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2015, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-this-is-totally-going-to-kill-bring-your-clock-to-school-day/731454/423 "2015-09-21T13:53:27Z")
> [@aldiboronti](#): > > The kid’s clever, I’ll give him that. but he’s a [clever hoaxer](http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/09/21/nerds-rage-over-ahmed-s-clock.html) not a budding Edison. Still, good luck to him, if only for showing us how dumb politicians and the media are. How is he a “clever hoaxer”? The only reason this got any notice anywhere in the world is because of the insane overreaction of the school and police. Take that away and the entirety of his “clever hoax” is… showing a clock to a teacher? I’ve no idea if he dumped a pre-built clock into a box or used parts from old clocks (is anyone claiming that he handmade the boards?) or used a DIY kit or what. The guy saying it was absolutely the Microtron clock would be more convincing to me if he actually opened said clock and showed that it was identical. But even then it wouldn’t change the story: he got arrested, handcuffed, printed, etc because he brought a clock to school that no one thought was a real bomb and he never claimed was a bomb but someone decided that it might sorta look like a bomb (even if no one thought it was one). The kid has won invention awards before. He took this clock to show it off at school. Even if all he did was a case mod, he’s still a kid interested in and excited about electronics who got caught up in a massive overreaction by the school and police. People flipping out over how “built” the clock was seem to be either trying to defend this overreaction (“Don’t feel sorry for him for being arrested, he didn’t even really build the clock!”) or petty sour grapes that this kid got free shit and attention and they didn’t. Maybe all the people whining about this and pretending that they’re just thinking of all the other children should instead put their effort into funding a national inventions contest for all the other kids or something if they’re legitimately worried about that. ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2015, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-this-is-totally-going-to-kill-bring-your-clock-to-school-day/731454/424 "2015-09-21T14:00:25Z")
[Quote=Boyo Jim] I would also guess that the digital readout was turned away from the camera to make it look MORE bomb-like. [/QUOTE] And jumbled up a bit. And taken without clear references so that the scale isn’t clear. For instance, people keep calling this a “briefcase” or even “suitcase.” Look at the size of the electric plug. If that’s a briefcase, that is one GIANT plug. Also, google “inside digital clock.” Because you know what this looks more like than a bomb? A digital clock. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2015, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-this-is-totally-going-to-kill-bring-your-clock-to-school-day/731454/425 "2015-09-21T14:07:08Z")
The discussion in this thread is so massively stupid it’s depressing. Straw men and excluded middles everywhere. A kid doesn’t have to be a genius or a prodigy or have invented something new before you look at the situation objectively and realize there was no reason to subject him to law enforcement intervention. ---
**Author:** ![FXMastermind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fxmastermind/32/7289_2.png) [@FXMastermind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FXMastermind)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2015, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-this-is-totally-going-to-kill-bring-your-clock-to-school-day/731454/426 "2015-09-21T14:10:09Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > [Here is a picture of the clock.](https://localtvkstu.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/homemade-clock-school-cnn.jpg) Amazing, he built a transformer to run it on AC, and added a 9 volt backup (so it won’t reset when the power goes off), and built an alarm into it. I wouldn’t be surprised if it doesn’t also have an AM/FM tuner and a speaker output as well. Very impressive. ---
**Author:** ![FXMastermind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fxmastermind/32/7289_2.png) [@FXMastermind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FXMastermind)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2015, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-this-is-totally-going-to-kill-bring-your-clock-to-school-day/731454/427 "2015-09-21T14:15:13Z")
> [@](#): > > Electronics experts who examined photos of 14-year-old Ahmed Mohamed’s creation called it a fraud loudly enough to grab the attention of famed atheist and biologist Richard Dawkins, who on Sunday tweeted: “We were all fooled.” [http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/09/21/nerds-rage-over-ahmed-s-clock.html](http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/09/21/nerds-rage-over-ahmed-s-clock.html) > [@](#): > > It turns out Ahmed didn’t create the clock out of spare parts and his own innate genius with electronics; rather, he took the guts of a manufactured alarm clock out of its case and reassembled them inside a pencil case > **[BREAKING: Nerd Hero Teen Didn't Whittle His Clock From Scratch, Send Him To...](https://www.wonkette.com/p/breaking-nerd-hero-teen-didnt-whittle-his-clock-from-scratch-send-him-to-gitmo)** > > I suppose now Adam Sandler wants a White House invitation, too? > [@](#): > > “Here we have a social media frenzy going on, with everybody to the president of the United States giving him a pat on the back, and I started thinking less about the clock, and more about us, as a society,” he told the Daily Beast. [www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/09/21/richard-dawkins-says-we-were-all-fooled-by-texas-teen-who-was-arrested-for-bringing-homemade-clock-to-school/](http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/09/21/richard-dawkins-says-we-were-all-fooled-by-texas-teen-who-was-arrested-for-bringing-homemade-clock-to-school/) ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2015, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-this-is-totally-going-to-kill-bring-your-clock-to-school-day/731454/428 "2015-09-21T14:17:32Z")
> [@FXMastermind](#): > > Amazing, he built a transformer to run it on AC, and added a 9 volt backup (so it won’t reset when the power goes off), and built an alarm into it. I wouldn’t be surprised if it doesn’t also have an AM/FM tuner and a speaker output as well. > > Very impressive. This critique has all the elements of a more comprehensive, well-packaged critique I read on the internet. You just took the elements of a better critique and jammed it into a crappy new format and passed it off as inventive. Ironic. ---
**Author:** ![xenophon41](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xenophon41/32/253_2.png) [@xenophon41](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xenophon41)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2015, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-this-is-totally-going-to-kill-bring-your-clock-to-school-day/731454/429 "2015-09-21T14:17:50Z")
> [@Jophiel](#): > > How is he a “clever hoaxer”? The only reason this got any notice anywhere in the world is because of the insane overreaction of the school and police. Take that away and the entirety of his “clever hoax” is… showing a clock to a teacher? > > \ > > …Maybe all the people whining about this and pretending that they’re just thinking of all the other children should instead put their effort into funding a national inventions contest for all the other kids or something if they’re legitimately worried about that. I wish we could just put a link to this post at the beginning of the thread. It sums up the story, explains and rebuts the whiners and offers an example of what a healthy and adult reaction would look like if the concern were truly about undeserved attention and misplaced encouragement. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2015, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-this-is-totally-going-to-kill-bring-your-clock-to-school-day/731454/430 "2015-09-21T14:22:10Z")
> [@xenophon41](#): > > I wish we could just put a link to this post at the beginning of the thread. It sums up the story, explains and rebuts the whiners and offers an example of what a healthy and adult reaction would look like if the concern were truly about undeserved attention and misplaced encouragement. Well, yeah, but that’s the easy part. School over-reacts to \. News at 11. Where’s the fun in that? ---
**Author:** ![Snarky\_Kong](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a183cd/32.png) [@Snarky\_Kong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snarky_Kong)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2015, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-this-is-totally-going-to-kill-bring-your-clock-to-school-day/731454/431 "2015-09-21T14:22:36Z")
> [@FXMastermind](#): > > In society there is a maxim of “what if everybody did it?”, in this case, what if every teenager brought a case with electronics in it, and it alarmed during class, and there was no clear and good reason for a jumble of wires and circuit boards to be in a case in your back pack. This is one of the dumbest things I’ve ever heard. What if everyone was a teacher? Then there’d be no food and we’d starve to death! “What if everyone did it” is for general modes of acting. What if everyone was curious and tried to learn new skills? It’d be fucking awesome. ---
**Author:** ![xenophon41](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xenophon41/32/253_2.png) [@xenophon41](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xenophon41)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2015, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-this-is-totally-going-to-kill-bring-your-clock-to-school-day/731454/432 "2015-09-21T14:25:01Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Well, yeah, but that’s the easy part. School over-reacts to \. News at 11. Where’s the fun in that? True enough. We’d have a million threads with two replies each. Carry on. ---
**Author:** ![FXMastermind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fxmastermind/32/7289_2.png) [@FXMastermind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FXMastermind)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2015, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-this-is-totally-going-to-kill-bring-your-clock-to-school-day/731454/433 "2015-09-21T14:29:02Z")
> [@Jophiel](#): > > How is he a “clever hoaxer”? The only reason this got any notice anywhere in the world is because of the insane overreaction of the school and police. [Muslims pray in front of MacArthur High School](http://www.theblaze.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/AP241062969352.jpg) at a prayer vigil in support of Ahmed Mohamed, Thursday, Sept. 17, 2015, in Irving, Texas. Ahmed, 14,[was arrested Monday when teachers and police mistook a clock he built for a possible bomb](http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/09/21/richard-dawkins-says-we-were-all-fooled-by-texas-teen-who-was-arrested-for-bringing-homemade-clock-to-school/). Let’s be realistic about what might have happened, in the real world, in a real situation like this. We have two obvious scenarios, and obviously two different views of what happened and why. Poor genius tries to impress teacher, builds digital clock, gets wrongly arrested and accused of shit, because he’s an Arab and schools and cops are stupid and wrong. or Clever kid buys clock, takes it apart and put’s in case, makes sure he has the 9 volt back up connected so the alarm will go off in class, making sure he gets the attention him and his dad planned on, and the family and Arabs in general play it up for all it’s worth, because liberals are stupid and Arabs are smart. And the cops and school did the right thing. or **It’s not as black or white as either side wants it to be**. ---
**Author:** ![Muffin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muffin/32/4341_2.png) [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2015, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-this-is-totally-going-to-kill-bring-your-clock-to-school-day/731454/434 "2015-09-21T14:29:19Z")
The stupid floating about in this thread is impressive. All you have to do is read the law: > [@](#): > > Texas Statute 4968.072 (3) (a) “Any person who re-assembles a clock rather than inventing a clock shall be arrested.” ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2015, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-this-is-totally-going-to-kill-bring-your-clock-to-school-day/731454/435 "2015-09-21T14:29:57Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > The discussion in this thread is so massively stupid it’s depressing. > > Straw men and excluded middles everywhere. > > A kid doesn’t have to be a genius or a prodigy or have invented something new before you look at the situation objectively and realize there was no reason to subject him to law enforcement intervention. One can agree with that, as I do, and also think the kid and his dad pulled off aa scam. BTW, repeatedly in this thread various posters have trotted out some variation of “duh, there’s obviously no actual exclusive” as though it were some sort of checkmate. But why would we assume he was showing this to people with the case wide open and all parts clearly displayed under bright lights? Isn’t it more likely that the case was fully or partially closed? ---
**Author:** ![FXMastermind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fxmastermind/32/7289_2.png) [@FXMastermind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FXMastermind)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2015, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-this-is-totally-going-to-kill-bring-your-clock-to-school-day/731454/436 "2015-09-21T14:35:09Z")
> [@Muffin](#): > > The stupid floating about in this thread is impressive. No kidding. I mean, obviously from the picture of the clock, he would have had to made sure the 9 volt back up was hooked up, for an alarm to go off in class. Is the kid an idiot? Or smart? Is it really “kid was so dumb he left the 9 volt hooked up all day”, or “the kid is smart, and knew that having an alarm go off in class would get attention, so he did it on purpose”. It’s a tough call. Should a smart 14 year old be smart enough to know better than to disrupt class or not? And even more important, did he actually build a damn clock or not? Because if he just removed an existing clock and put it in a different case, brought it to school, and left the back up battery in, so the alarm went off in class, he is a fucking idiot. Or, really really smart. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2015, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-this-is-totally-going-to-kill-bring-your-clock-to-school-day/731454/437 "2015-09-21T14:39:23Z")
> [@FXMastermind](#): > > It’s a tough call. Should a smart 14 year old be smart enough to know better than to disrupt class or not? You don’t know many 14 year olds, do you? Curiosity or engineering skill doesn’t translate to common sense and wisdom. Kids have been annoying teachers with beeping watches and phones and other gadgetry for as long as its existed. Personally, I put much more onus on the school and police to make intelligent, common sense decisions than on 14 year olds. That’s why they’re in charge. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2015, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-this-is-totally-going-to-kill-bring-your-clock-to-school-day/731454/438 "2015-09-21T14:41:54Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > BTW, repeatedly in this thread various posters have trotted out some variation of “duh, there’s obviously no actual exclusive” as though it were some sort of checkmate. But why would we assume he was showing this to people with the case wide open and all parts clearly displayed under bright lights? Isn’t it more likely that the case was fully or partially closed? If anyone thought it had actual explosives, the logical reaction would be to get people to a place where the bomb isn’t. And the reaction from the police would be to send in the bomb fighting robot drone dogs to spray it with Bomb-B-Gone rather than all sitting around it for hours on end. Fully open case or not, no one thought this was a bomb. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2015, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-this-is-totally-going-to-kill-bring-your-clock-to-school-day/731454/439 "2015-09-21T14:42:59Z")
Can we all just stipulate that the school and police blundered around stupidly? Because I think focusing on that obscures the more interesting question of whether this happened randomly to someone innocent or whether their stupidity was taken advantage of quite cannily. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2015, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-this-is-totally-going-to-kill-bring-your-clock-to-school-day/731454/440 "2015-09-21T14:43:39Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > [Here is a picture of the clock.](https://localtvkstu.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/homemade-clock-school-cnn.jpg) I gotta say, it looks very bomb-like. > > I would also guess that the digital readout was turned away from the camera to make it look MORE bomb-like. I guess then you haven’t seen many bombs. or clocks. Because that’s just a clock, disassembled. And nothing that looks explosive, except maybe whatever that white thing is. The display face is head-on. See the ghosts of 4 "8"s in there? And I don’t see a “jumble” of wires. I see one ribbon wire going to the display, two ribbon wires connecting the clock board to the switch panel, the two white/one black go from the transformer to the board and give (12VDC?) power , and two wires to the 9V battery connector. I admit I don’t know what the green/red pair is for - snooze button? Detonator? (If I were his teacher, my criticism would be that he didn’t make a pass through for the power cord, so the clock could get powered when the lid was closed.) One question - if it is 120V powered, how did it go off in class? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-this-is-totally-going-to-kill-bring-your-clock-to-school-day/731454.md?page=21) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-this-is-totally-going-to-kill-bring-your-clock-to-school-day/731454.md?page=23)