This personal essay celebrates a 10-year-old's creative invention journey and its role in building resilience and self-belief. The narrative engages modestly with Articles on freedom of thought, expression, association, and cultural participation, framing these rights as enabling individual agency and creative exploration. However, structural privacy practices (undisc closed Google Analytics tracking) create a mild negative signal against Article 12.
Cute story. This reminded me how in elementary school and middle school I used to draw pencil drawings of rollercoasters on my page to pass the time. Rollercoaster tycoon fan :)
When I was young I wrote to the Formula 1 team McLaren to ask if they could hire me for a student job. I didn't expect to get a reply, but I got one. The answer was negative, but I was happy. I never reflected about it until now, but maybe it learned me that asking doesn't cost anything, and that the worst thing that can happen is getting a negative answer? Not sure that was the turning point, but this is indeed my approach! :-)
These letters matter a lot to kids. I sent my video game idea to Nintendo as a little kid and I had the same reaction seeing that envelope from Nintendo in the mailbox addressed to me. I think it was also a bit more special pre-internet as these companies felt a bit more magical and mysterious. You can only read about them through video game magazines and see their names in the credit scenes at the end of the games. Unless you were one of those weird kids that called Nintendo Power helpline of course!
I remember sending a letter to Google in 2003? 2004? (I was 13 years old) with my idea. It explained that my mom asks questions to Google instead of using keywords (remember how using the right keywrods was a skill and could affect the results a lot?), and they should fix that.
I event included some PHP code to explain how they could parse the input in question format and convert it to keywords, using regular expression. Ha, how naive. My dream was to receive a letter back saying how a good idea that was and that I was hired.
I wrote to Sainsburys (large UK grocery store chain) in 1993, suggesting an idea for a "self checkout", where you would scan items yourself as you put them into your shipping cart. My anti-theft solution was that they'd weigh your cart as you left, to make sure you'd scanned everything!
I never expected a reply, but was so stoked when I received a letter with a similar generic-but-enthusiastic reply, along the lines of "Thanks for such a creative idea!"
Do kids still get the opportunity to experience things like this? I can't imagine that sending an email to a company's generic contact@ address is ever going to get the save kind of response - and certainly not something that they can proudly pin on their wall for motivation.
As a 10y old, my father taught me about logical ports. I took a very large piece of paper and in a few days, I designed a tic tac toe "computer". It had LEDs that indicated the next computer move, based on the position of the pieces: every single possible state of the board led to a specific "next move" led. I do not think it actually would have worked, but of course I was very proud of my design at the time. Unfortunately, when I showed it to my teacher, he did not believe that I was serious. "This is a joke, right?" And that was it. Poor kid me... It did not discourage me however. I was a software engineer for a long time, and now I am a CS teacher. And I (try to) never ever discount the efforts of children.
Around this age I went to a water park and was similarly inspired. I had the idea for making an entire water park dedicated to making sure people would get wet and jump onto rides from beginning to end. I called it "Totally Wet People", drew up an elaborate concept art for water slides, sprinklers, pools, tubes, etc. My mom thought it was hilarious and brought it to work (alas, she worked for the Navy at the time, not Disney). I got a lot of second-hand compliments from everyone at her work and it made me feel awesome for at least a couple weeks. Wish I had the forethought to send it to Six Flags or Disney!
At age 13 I pitched a candy idea to Mars Bars as part of a school project to write business letters. I loved Snickers at the time but was tired of unwrapping so many fun-size ones from Halloween. I told them something like - “you should just put the fun-size candies in a big resealable bag, so people can eat as much as they want without dealing with the wrappers. You can call them unwrapped minis. All you have to do is create new packaging and re-use the fun-size bars!”
I found the CEO’s corporate address somewhere online and sent the letter to him, never to hear back.
Then, around 8 months later, I saw my first ad for Snickers Unwrapped Bites on TV and freaked out. They had immediately implemented my idea, which as a kid was amazing, but I’ll never forgive them for not writing back. Especially because none of my friends ever believed me.
I did a similar thing with a car design for Mercedes-Benz when I was around the same age. I had all the car drawing books and really thought I was going to be a car designer. Much to my surprise, they responded with enthusiasm and even sent me a Mercedes-Benz keychain :)
When I was 8 I sent a letter to LEGO about a line of toys that slid down on stair bannister's. I gave it to my mom to send to them but apparently she betrayed me and kept it for herself because she thought it was "cute". Thanks to her I don't work for LEGO :(
There's a story by a guy who did something similar when he was in 2nd grade, and successfully pitched an aardvark plush to a toy company! It always makes me smile whenever it pops up again.
I remember the wiring, pipes, everything actually went somewhere and was meant for something. Nothing was just for looks and everything served a purpose.
When I was a kid I sent a letter to Snapple telling them that they should make Snapple flavored popsicles. They sent me a nice letter telling me it was a good idea. I have not thought about it since. But I wonder if my letter directly lead to this disaster:
"Disaster on a stick
An attempt to erect the world’s largest popsicle in a city square ended with a scene straight out of a disaster film — but much stickier."
Around that age, I wrote a letter to Tandy (Radio Shack), proposing that I write a hobby electronics book.
In hindsight, I wasn't knowledgeable enough to write a printed book's worth of material (maybe a few modern blog posts, at best). But at the time, I knew more about electronics than the other 29 kids in my grade school class, and that constituted most of my worldview, so why couldn't I write a book.
I loved the Forrest Mims books, and, like any kid, wanted to mimic the things that I saw grownups doing.
Someone at Tandy might have realized that I was just an enthusiastic kid, but in any case, they wrote me a nice letter back. The company didn't wish to develop a book at this time, but if I did so on my own, they would be happy to review a copy off the press.
I grew up a nerdy kid in the 80s that liked military airplanes, and on the island I grew up on, was the HQ and manufacturing facility of a local manufacturer of military aircraft, that at the time was named Grumman. They were like a local source of jobs and pride and prestige of something cool to come from the island (second only to Billy Joel, the most famous celebrity of that era from The Island hahaha.)
Anyhow, when I was about 10, I wrote the CEO of Grumman a letter about how great they were talking nerdy about my favorite planes of theirs. The CEO wrote back with a short message thanking me personally. I was so excited, my parents framed it and put it on the wall of my childhood room, etc etc. Only as an adult, well into my 30s, did I remember that and think "OMG, of course his secretary or PR firm wrote that", but I truly couldn't realize that when I was a kid.
At the same age I was using the school's phone bill to phone beer companies and request they send me beer mats, so I could swap them with other kids in the playground. And they did, which seems a little off these days.
Reading this I wish I'd set my sights higher, figuratively and literally!
When I was a kid in the days of the discman, I came up with the idea of a cigarette-box-sized optical card reader that instead of spin the media it would scan the card and play the songs in it. I called it the "opticard" and thought that would be extremely cool to have some music cards in your pocket instead of carrying inconveniently sized CDs in your belt.
I wanted to write Sony about my idea but never got the balls. Years later they released the minidisc, still bulky, a total flop. The memory stick was a much better idea from them, I never knew why they didn't implement an iPod earlier than Apple
Ahhhh this makes me so happy. My brother and I, like many, were so obsessed with all the LucasArts adventures, so naturally I mailed them in my idea. I also got a letter back. IIRC it wasn't from a lawyer, but it was definitely a soft "no." There's a chance I still have that letter somewhere.
Man, I am not a "good old days" kind of person but the 80s (well, late 80s early 90s) really were a different time.
For sure it was a nice experience, I would have done the same, imagine that kid you wrote back gets inspired, goes to study engineering then they come work for you instead of the competition. But nowadays is getting super rare to get human written rejection emails anymore, let alone to kids.
>but maybe it learned me that asking doesn't cost anything, and that the worst thing that can happen is getting a negative answer?
Yeah, but what do you think happens when every kid from the UK asks McLaren for a student job? What happens when everyone from India asks McLaren for a student job?
A kid every couple of months asking you for a job is cute and adorable, 5000 kids asking you for a job per month is a nuisance.
The truth is that this attitude of "it doesn't hurt to ask" only works in high trust societies where people exercise self restraint and all inquiries are done only in good faith, but doesn't scale at all when everyone on the planet starts doing "spray-and-pray" crap shoots and it just quickly becomes spam and overwhelms their capacity to actually read and reply to messages of people who might be genuinely qualified, so we get the issue I mentioned at the start where all messages from applications now first go through ATS and AI bots instead of actual humans.
What was the reason? Anything beyond concerns over ownership of the ideas, characters, etc. (which I presume is the boilerplate legalese)? Did they even admit to reading your letter?
lmao, I was just thinking about this yesterday. My parents would do the same thing and I would try to correct them and explain how they can get better results just typing keywords and not sentences. And here I am in 2026 typing full sentences in Google search so that AI can present me the exact answer directly in the search results.
Ask a kid (preferably one of your own or a niece or nephew, etc.) to write to your local football team and see what happens. Some are good about it, some aren't. It helps if you send a letter to the correct department instead of sending an email to a generic contact address.
That really hits home. I spent a couple weeks in primary school sketching my own blueprints for great inventions. Nothing that could've ever worked (I didn't know what a transistor actually was, but my machine certainly had a lot of them!), but in hindsight a good start for a curious tech-minded child - switches that opened/closed circuits, wires to connect the various imaginary lasers and electromagnets, and so on. On the back of the paper I scrawled documentation to remember what the darn thing was actually supposed to do (the biggest one? Save people who fall out of airplanes, which to my 9 year old mind was a big issue that needed to be solved)
One day my teacher noticed me doodling in the back, so she promptly grabbed all the "blueprints" I was so proud of, tore them up, and tossed them in the trash. I guess I get discouraged easier than you though, since I didn't design a thing for many years afterwards.
One of the things that got me in to "coding" when I was 9 years old was building tic tac toe in Excel, locking the window size to 3x3 cells and then implementing clicks as links to the next board state, with the "computer" having already played the next move. The whole sheet had every possible board state written out by hand.
I so much wish we could all get together as engineers and make a site where kids can write to and send videos etc on and we just praise them and tell them their ideas are good as a community.
8 months later sounds too short to have taken your idea, I'm guessing launching a product at Mars scale takes like 2 years. This is probably why the always say they cannot take ideas sent by external people... but on the other hand if this came from the CEO, probably could be fast tracked. So 80/20.
Do you remember who was the CEO?
I sent steve jobs ([email protected]) an email saying that MacOS should have an unspoofable dialog for the system password authorization, same way they have for DRM videos etc. I also suggested the user could choose a secret phrase or image to be displayed in the dialog during system setup. Never heard back. This was when Steve was alive and in charge. And to this day anyone can spoof the system password dialog and steal the system password…
I remember getting on the gmail beta as a middle schooler and sending feedback. They implemented three of "my ideas" and called them the "Most requested features" each time, so I figured I was the only one sending in feedback lol.
I wonder if they have a policy about not accepting ideas / replying to people don't think their idea was stolen. I know TV shows have that policy so nobody can accuse them of plagiarizing their script idea.
In 1997 I typed up a letter to Maxis in Microsoft Creative Writer about how much I liked their games and wanted to move to America and work at Maxis when I grew up:
Unfortunately I made the mistake of mentioning that it'd be cool if you could print out an image of your city in SimCity 2000, as you could in the previous SimCity game. That was enough to get me only this letter from legal as a response:
Six year old me sent an idea to McDonnell Douglas for an airplane with turboprops to back up the jets in case of engine fire. There was also a fire suppression system. They sent me some nice brochures about the DC-8, -9, and -10, but looking back on it they could have mentioned that the jets are already redundant and will usually stop burning when the fuel is cut.
Little did you know that your ideas were incorporated into Navy training. The Navy is wet work and you need practice working in such conditions. They unfortunately left out your concessions stands and the water slide. Sorry.
(I know that submariners literally have water obstacle courses where they have to learn to, for instance, do some repairs while a compartment is flooding, but I’ve no idea what the Navy does as a whole).
I think this is one of the ways in which the internet is dangerous for children.
Gen X kids were starving for any adult not their parents to acknowledge their existence. Which made us targets for predators. But now we’ve overcorrected and acknowledgement is routine. That dopamine hit is practically free.
You'd have better luck mailing a letter, but to be honest the kind of "sending a letter and getting a reply from the CEO or some sort of higher up" is long gone unfortunately. There is a few exceptions, but all of them are for very old private companies. You will never get a reply from Pepsi as a kid with a new flavour idea. Or Disney about a new ride for that matter.
When I was probably 10 or so, one of the largest computer magazines in the country had a job for a 'junior writer'. My 10yo brain did not realize that junior meant 'just finished the relevant education' and though 'hey, I'm a junior'. So I just called them up and the guy on the other side of the line was clearly confused what to say to me not to disappoint me too much and mumbled something like "the person responsible for hiring is not around". In hindsight, it's pretty ballsy for a kid to just call, if I had to do it ten/fifteen years later I'd have been pretty nervous.
I'm a bit sad that we lose that innocent, carefree attitude later in life.
When I was thirteen I sent an email to Tom Fulp (creator of Newgrounds.com) telling him I wanted to make my own website with Coldfusion (which I had learned about through a pirated copy of DreamWeaver) and MySQL, and asked if would help me make it. [1]
He responded back extremely politely and said that my idea seems like a great idea, but he's far too busy running Newgrounds to build any other websites right now, but once I build it he would love to see it.
I never ended up building the website, but I look back and think it was cool how encouraging he was to some random kid who emailed him.
Kids will pick the weirdest people as "heroes" sometimes, and it's cool when your heroes turn out to be decent humans. Sometimes just responding to an email is all it takes.
[1] I honestly do not remember at all what the website was supposed to be and I don't have the email anymore. Knowing thirteen year old me, it was probably a forum about Donkey Kong Country or something.
The problem with that is the benefit of inspiring children does little to nothing for the business, while the risk of frivolous but expensive legal actions because you decide you should get millions for inventing the self service checkout is not insignificant.
I'd suspect many places would still respond positively though, especially in the more creative worlds. Almost every creative was that kid once.
It was more likely written by a staff member who thought it would make your day, and signed by the Secretary of Defense. It is pretty neat that you got two letters though, because your letter probably got passed around and made the day of several people.
The essay itself is an act of free expression—a personal essay published on a personal domain. The narrator describes seeking to communicate his ideas (sending letters to Disneyland and Ideal Toy Company). The narrative frames these communications as expressions of personal opinion and creative vision. The essay advocates for the value of sharing ideas and seeking feedback, even in the face of rejection.
FW Ratio: 57%
Observable Facts
The essay is a published personal narrative on a freely accessible domain.
The narrator describes writing and sending letters to major corporations (Disneyland, Ideal Toy Company) to communicate his ideas.
The page content is long-form, detailed, and unredacted—no editorial filtering is apparent.
The narrative culminates in the author sharing his creative journey publicly, inviting readers into his thinking process.
Inferences
The choice to publish a personal essay on a personal domain represents an exercise of Article 19 rights—freedom to hold opinions and disseminate ideas.
The narrative's emphasis on sending unsolicited letters to major companies frames the act of communication itself as valuable, even when rejected.
The open accessibility and unfiltered nature of the essay suggests the author operates in an environment conducive to free expression.
The essay celebrates freedom of thought, conscience, and religion through the narrator's unfettered intellectual and creative exploration. The 10-year-old is shown freely thinking, imagining, and pursuing ideas without external constraint. His independent reasoning about roller coaster design and later invention work exemplifies internal intellectual freedom.
FW Ratio: 60%
Observable Facts
The narrator describes a moment of sudden insight: 'Then, a wild thought suddenly hit me: Why isn't there a roller coaster that goes upside down?'
The narrative emphasizes the narrator's independent reasoning: 'At first, I was like that's crazy, it can't work. But then I remembered Spin Out...'
The narrator pursues his ideas across decades despite repeated rejection, showing freedom to hold and act on internal convictions.
Inferences
The celebration of unguided intellectual exploration and creative thinking affirms Article 18's protection of thought and conscience.
The narrative portrays a social environment where a child can freely ideate and pursue unconventional ideas without suppression.
The essay implicitly affirms freedom of movement and residence through the narrator's ability to travel freely to Disneyland, receive mail, and move within the domestic space to conduct his invention project. The narrative assumes and celebrates these freedoms without restriction.
FW Ratio: 50%
Observable Facts
The narrator describes visiting Disneyland at age 10 and traveling home to receive mail.
The narrative shows the narrator moving freely within his home and neighborhood.
Inferences
The freedom to travel and receive correspondence is portrayed as an ordinary part of childhood, implicitly affirming Article 13 freedoms.
The story does not challenge or restrict these freedoms, suggesting they are taken as normal and achievable.
The essay portrays the narrator associating with peers (Daschle, his best friend and neighbor) and later working in collaborative creative fields (acting, invention). These relationships are framed as voluntary and personally meaningful. The narrative suggests freedom to form friendships and pursue group activities without external constraint.
FW Ratio: 60%
Observable Facts
The narrator describes his friendship with Daschle: 'my best friend Daschle. He was older, knew everything, and lived next door.'
The narrator and Daschle collaborate on a recreation project (The Towering Inferno), showing voluntary association.
The narrator later describes working 'in one of the most rejection-heavy industries there is, acting,' suggesting voluntary association in professional communities.
Inferences
The narrative portrays voluntary friendships and collaborative projects as normal and achievable aspects of childhood and adulthood.
The freedom to associate with chosen peers is taken as a given, not contested or denied.
The essay celebrates individual creative agency and self-directed achievement. The narrator, as a 10-year-old, is shown exercising initiative, reasoning, and personal liberty in pursuing his invention. This modest alignment with Article 1's emphasis on free reasoning and acting in a spirit of brotherhood reflects the story's focus on autonomous action.
The essay portrays the narrator as a 10-year-old in 1978 attending school ('with all my homework, I could only work on weekends'). The narrative assumes access to formal education and frames schooling as a normal part of childhood. However, the essay does not explicitly address education rights, educational quality, or the purpose of education in human development.
FW Ratio: 33%
Observable Facts
The narrator mentions homework as a regular part of his schedule: 'with all my homework, I could only work on weekends.'
Inferences
The narrative assumes schooling as a normal, expected part of childhood, suggesting acceptance of education access.
No barriers to education are portrayed or discussed.
The essay celebrates participation in cultural and creative life. The narrator visits Disneyland (cultural consumption), pursues artistic work (inventing, later acting), and engages with popular culture (Rubik's Cube). The narrative frames creative participation as personally valuable and achievable.
FW Ratio: 60%
Observable Facts
The narrator visits Disneyland and experiences its attractions, describing the cultural and emotional impact.
The narrator pursues creative and artistic work (invention, acting) as meaningful life pursuits.
The narrator engages with cultural products (Rubik's Cube, roller coasters) and reimagines them.
Inferences
The narrative portrays participation in cultural life (both consumption and creation) as a valued dimension of human experience.
The ability to visit cultural venues, engage with art and entertainment, and create cultural works is portrayed as achievable.
The essay describes the narrator eventually working 'in one of the most rejection-heavy industries there is, acting' and having 'invented several patented board games that were shopped around but never sold.' These passages reference work and economic participation but do not engage substantively with Article 23's rights to work, just and favorable conditions, equal pay for equal work, or the right to form trade unions.
FW Ratio: 50%
Observable Facts
The narrator identifies as an actor and inventor, describing these as professional pursuits.
The narrative mentions 'patented board games' and attempted commercialization, indicating engagement with economic markets.
Inferences
The narrator's identification with work (acting, inventing) suggests acceptance of the right to work, though not explicitly advocated.
The narrative does not address labor conditions, compensation justice, or collective bargaining rights.
The essay describes the narrator creating intellectual property (the Quadrupuler roller coaster design, later patented board games, and a modified Rubik's Cube prototype). However, the story emphasizes rejection of his intellectual work (Ideal Toy Company rejects his cube innovation; board games are never sold). While the narrator retains possession of his creations, the narrative frames them as undervalued and uncompensated, suggesting a mild tension with Article 17's protection of property rights.
FW Ratio: 60%
Observable Facts
The narrator sends his roller coaster design to Disneyland but receives no compensation or formal recognition of ownership.
The narrator later attempts to sell patented board games but they are never commercialized.
The narrator creates and sends an unsolicited Rubik's Cube prototype to Ideal Toy Company, which rejects it.
Inferences
The narrative portrays intellectual creations as possessions of the creator, but emphasizes their lack of market value or compensation.
The story suggests that intellectual property rights alone do not guarantee benefit or recognition for the creator.
The preamble addresses universal human dignity and equal rights. The essay's celebration of individual creative agency and perseverance aligns with dignity principles, but does not directly engage with the Preamble's formal language on peace, freedom, or social progress.
The essay contains no observable material addressing rights without distinction of any kind (race, color, sex, language, religion, political opinion, national or social origin, property, or birth status).
The website structure enables free expression through a published essay accessible to any reader at no cost. There are no apparent editorial restrictions, content filters, or removal mechanisms. The minimal structural governance (no terms of service, no editorial code detected) creates minimal barriers to expression.
The website structure enables cultural expression through the publication of a personal essay, effectively functioning as a platform for cultural participation.
The domain operates Google Analytics tracking (G-5RH0X2ZDGH) without explicit disclosure, cookie notice, or privacy policy. This represents a structural practice that does not respect privacy rights. The cached DCP notes -0.05 modifiers for both privacy and ad_tracking affecting Article 12.
