How hard can it be?
To be sure, he didn’t produce net energy, or electricity. Just Neutron flux.
The Guinness Book of World Records has more than 70,000 active record titles as of Dec. 31, 2025, with between 550 to 766 of those records directly connected to Texans. A new record could be attributed to a young Texan soon.
Shirin Foroudi knew that her 13-year-old son, Aidan, was wired a little differently at a young age. This is why she founded Launchpad Incubator, a space that encourages children to create and innovate with their ideas.
“When he learned the alphabet, he first learned it backwards. He first learned it as z, y and x’s instead of his ABC’s. I don’t know my z, y, x’s, so I don’t know where he got that from but that’s where he started,” Foroudi said.
Knowing this, it did not surprise the Dallas mom when her son wanted to take on a massive building project during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Eight-year-olds don’t really know what the word ‘no’ means, so I was kind of just like ‘oh hey?’ Actually, I was like, ‘oh hey, I want to build an electron microscope,’ and my dad looked up like ‘what are the parts for this?,’” said Aidan McMillan.
Aidan pivoted his planned project to a tabletop fusor. He got connected with the Dallas Makerspace, a nonprofit organization that provides a 36,000-square-foot community lab and workspace, with him being the only child in this adult arena. One of his mentors at the Dallas Makerspace lit a spark in Aidan.
“I think it was Russ who knew about the Guinness record and he was like ‘oh this kid just did it a few hours before his 13th birthday.’ At the time, Aidan was like 8. So, he was like, ‘if you work really hard you might beat his record,’” said Foroudi.
Aidan ended up creating fusion two days before his 13th birthday, and a current science professor explained how great of an achievement this is.
“Fusion is important because first of all, it’s an energy source. It’s of interest for power in the future. It is the process that powers stars, including the sun,” said Carl Willis, professor of practice at the University of New Mexico.
Willis followed this high school hobby and interest in nuclear fusion, turning it into his career. Aidan’s parents reached out to him to witness the North Texan possibly making history, and Willis was excited to be a part of that history.
“Projects like this are accessible to young people, and if they have the right contacts, the right resources,” Willis said.
This led to the launching of Launchpad on “May the 4th Be with You Day” last year. It’s in a similar vein to the Dallas Makerspace, but more kid-friendly.
“For kids so they don’t have to be chaperoned around by their parents who like come here every day and just like knit or look at their Instagram or whatever parents do these days,” said Aidan.
Foroudi knew there were other brainiacs like her son out there and didn’t want a lack of funds to be a barrier for those kids. That’s why she is going out of her way to encourage this space for younger people.
“I am a chief nerd herder,” Foroudi said. “It’s getting the adult nerds and kid nerds together, and I love it. I love what we’re capable of here. So, it’s really nice to be able to have this space and the autonomy to make decisions so kids can do what they can dream.”
Foroudi is getting all her documents to send to Guinness, with the hopes of her son achieving a dream he’s poured nearly half of his life into.
Video below has a report on the boy wonder, as well as a TED style talk from a fusion entrepeneur.
It seems that a lot of journalists do not know that a continuous fusion rection will require some sort of magnetic containment (tokamak, stellarator, etc), or inertial confinement as used by the National Ignition Facility in California. I was surprised that these pop-sci videos never told us what materials were attempting to be fused. Was it Deuterium-Tritium or something else?