Kids have invented all kinds of things that we use in our everyday lives，including earmuffs, the Popsicle, the trampoline and Braille! One of the earliest kid inventors was Benjamin Franklin. He invented swim flippers at the age of twelve.

About 500,000 kids invent things each year. Their inventions help make our lives easier and more interesting!

Let’s celebrate the creativity of young people on K.I.D.!

What is it?

K.I.D.—Kid Inventors’ Day

When is it?

It’s celebrated on January 17^th, the birthday of Benjamin Franklin.

Why is it celebrated?

To acknowledge(感谢) past and present achievements of kid inventors: to encourage the creativity of future kid inventors.

How can you celebrate it?

Read about it. Write about it. Start a young inventors’ club. Enter a contest. Or, design your own invention!

In the future, because of high technology(高科技), there will be a time machine. With the time machine, people can go to both the past and the future. But most people would like to go to the past and don’t like to go to the future, because the environment(环境) in the future will be very bad. There will be few trees and animals. And there will be a lot of rubbish.

Not everyone can go to the past or the future. You have to be more than 18 years old. Before your travelling, you need to fill in a form(表格). You need to write down your name, age and ________ you want to travel to the past and the future. If your reason(原因) is OK, you can travel to the past and the future! When you go there, you can’t take anything with you. And you have to come back in three days. And when you come back, you can’t bring anything back.

What would naturalist Charles Darwin, author of 1859’s the Origin of Species, think of today’s pioneering evolutionary (进化的) development? Scientists at the University of Vermont (UVM) have just “designed” a living robot made of living cells on a supercomputer, called “xenobots”.

Unlike traditional robots, an xenobot is a very small robot. Its size is currently smaller than a grain of salt. It’s not made of metal, plastic, or other synthetic(人造的) materials. Rather, it is made from living cells taken from an African frog(青蛙). These robots cure themselves after being cut and they are ALIVE! They are living robots!

The purpose of inventing xenobots is to make them improve our lives, especially we want them to solve problems troubling our planet. There are some future uses of xenobots that have been proposed. Let’s look at some of them!

In the future, scientists may develop xenobots to detect and fight cancer. They are tiny and can go through human bodies. When something is wrong with human bodies, they could receive the order to find the problems in the human body and fight diseases or cancers. With these usages, xenobots would become a revolutionary element in the medical field.

These xenobots aren’t just limited to the medical field. They could also become the saviors of our planet! Due to increased industrial activity over the past few decades, the oceans and other water bodies of the planet are being badly polluted, as waste materials from industries and factories are being recklessly poured into the oceans and nearby water bodies. Thus, water bodies are littered with microplastics, which cannot be easily recycled. Xenobots could help. They could collect or even break down(分解) these microplastics in the oceans and other water bodies. They could clean radioactive material in dangerous places.

The technology of such kind of robots improves amazingly with the help of artificial intelligence (AI). However, some people are worrying about the challenges that xenobots would bring. If this technology could maybe be used in a wrong way? What would happen if the technology was used against the international law? Would xenobots finally take place of human beings? While we still don’t have the answer connected to this brand-new technology, one thing is sure: it is here to help us, and it works!