Many children often dream of creating something great, something from their wildest imaginations, yet many of these childhood dreams are never brought into reality. However, there are those who continue to pursue their imaginations and dreams, leading them to create incredible inventions, people like this can be found everywhere, including Liberty’s very own James Wilson, a current Senior. 

Wilson first found inspiration to invent from a cardboard vending machine. 

“I really wanted to make the vending machine work. I wanted it to read coins and bills, but I knew there was no way I was going to be able to do this with what I had at the moment, and that led me to ponder about what I actually needed to learn how to make it a reality,” Wilson said.

Since Wilson has entered high school, he has been able to greatly improve his skills, he can now create more advanced creations and take on more projects at a time. 

“I am always working on projects. Some of them are long-term, while others are just a couple of days. I generally don’t finish half of them because it’s either such a big and substantive task or I run out of inspiration,” Wilson said. “Although, the projects I’ve been working on are for stuff like games, movies and physical items for a couple years now.” 

Wilson integrates coding into almost every project he creates. 

“I work with various developers who help build the stuff that actually goes into games. More often than not, the projects are something that I can 3D print.” Wilson said.

One of Wilson’s many projects that involved coding was an AI writing tool called Wryte. 

“Wryte is a software where you can basically type in a prompt you want to write, and it will write it for you. It actually uses the same technologies as the company that made ChatGPT,” Wilson said.

It’s impressive enough that a high schooler was able to create a writing tool utilizing AI, yet what makes Wilson even more impressive was that he beat Chat GPT  in the race for AI writing. 

“When I created Wryte, ChatGPT was not out. It came out about a year and a half later,” Wilson said.

“It’s amazing to have people like James so interested in programming. I have so many student programmers and James is one of the best.” Jeffery Wolfington.

In addition to his projects, Wilson also interns remotely at a software company located in California. 

“I interned for Kajabi in California last summer and worked on a web app for people to create projects. It was a great way to put my skills to good use, and I thought it’d be a good experience for me to learn about the professional world.” Wilson said.

“For people who want to create and program like James does, the key is curiosity,” said Wolfington.

No matter how talented someone is, inspiration and ideas are at the core of all great creations. Wilson finds inspiration in a very imaginative source: Disney. 

“I take a lot of inspiration from Disney rides. I ask myself, how does this technology come together to make this awe-inspiring attraction that makes people happy? How can I do that? How can I make people happy with the stuff I make?” Wilson said.