Student hopes to use super power building with Legos to help others

Editor’s Note: This is the first in a series of article Fundamental Learning Center will be posting to highlight the super powers of people with dyslexia. For information on people with dyslexia’s super powers, read here.

Name: Zion

Age: 14

Super Power: Building with Legos

Zion, 14, can visualize his complex Lego creations in his mind before he begins to craft them. He plans to use this unique skill set to help others in his future career.

Legos offer Zion a way to demonstrate his talent in the visual-spatial area. He used to purchase pre-made Lego kits, but he soon realized designing and building his own creations was more fun.

“Before I start putting one piece together, I can see what it is,” he said. “Then all I have to do is figure out how to put it together.”

His Lego creations include aspects like ball joints that allow the pieces to move like living things. The items he has built range from a movable human hand to a whale with a working tail to a car that easily morphed into a moving robot. Robots are some of Zion’s favorite things to build.

“I have made different types,” he said. “I have made a MEC (Mechanized Exoskeletal Cybersuit) suit that you can put figures into.”

Zion first discovered his love for Legos at the age of 6. As he has grown older, the complexity of his designs has increased.

“The whale’s tale, I think, had 23 ball bearings in it,” he said. “The tale could move really, really swiftly.”

More recently, he began making phone cases out of Legos in a complicated process that involves heating up an Exacto knife to cut through the Legos.

Zion has a goal of becoming an official Lego set designer. But even more than that, he said, he wants to help people with disabilities have enhanced communication abilities.

For a future career, Zion wants to use his gift for creating for the greater good. He wants to invent technology to help people who have disabilities.

“Obviously, a lot of disabled people, if they are living alone or somewhat alone, they can’t do certain things by themselves,” he said.

Zion has researched existing computer software that can aide robots in completing household tasks to help those with disabilities. He hopes his Lego building will prepare him for a future career helping those who have physical limitations.

He said he decided he wanted to help those with disabilities after meeting a child with autism and watching him interact with his mother.

“He relied on his mom just as much as I did, and he loved his mom just as much as I did,” he said.

Due to his struggle with reading, writing and spelling, Zion understands what it can be like to be different.

“In my opinion, a handicapped person is not a handicapped person on the inside,” Zion said. “I want to make something where they can communicate.”

While overcoming his struggles with dyslexia, Zion wants to assist others who are struggling.