Mohamed 's Clock - bullshit

The story of 14 year old Ahmed Mohamed has been floating around the intarwebs for the last couple of days.

From Breitbart:

EIGHT-YEAR-OLD FACED EXPULSION FOR DRAWING GUN, BUT MUSLIM STUDENT GETS WHITE HOUSE INVITE AFTER ‘HOAX BOMB’
Following news that high school freshman Ahmed Mohamed brought a homemade clock which police described as a “hoax bomb” onto campus, police declined to file charges and President Obama reached and invited Mohamed to bring his clock and visit the White House. Contrast that with the experience of an unnamed elementary school student who was threatened with expulsion–and ultimately pulled from the school–for drawing a picture of a Ninja holding a gun.

A bit more:

According to the New York Daily News, Mohamed’s homemade clock came to a teacher’s attention when the alarm on the clock went off during English class. He pulled the clock out of his backpack to turn it off and the teacher confiscated it, believing it could be a bomb. Mohamed was subsequently “called into a meeting with the principal — and five police officers.”

Police were quick to announce that Mohamed would not face any charges and he now has an invitation to the White House and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has extended an invitation for him to visit Facebook headquarters as well. Democrat presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton also chimed in by tweeting, “Assumptions and fear don’t keep us safe — they hold us back. Ahmed, stay curious and keep building.”

I finally found a picture of his 'clock' and I am calling bullshit on it. Here is the picture:

This is a commercial alarm clock that little Mohamed uncased and crudely mounted into a box.

He did not design the circuit. He did not make these circuit boards. He did not solder the ribbon connector between the display and the main clock board. If you look at the left of the box you can see a blue oval that is the connector for a 9 Volt battery to keep the commercial clock running during a power outage. Mohamed did not secure the power transformer (blue and tan cube to the left of the checkered bag in the lower right corner.

The ribbon connector between the display and the main board is what cinched it for me - these are assembled and soldered by machine. It is very difficult - even for me with 50+ years of soldering experience) to do as uniform and neat a job. No way is a high-school student going to be able to do this especially with the sloppy level of craftsmanship on display here.

Sorry but I am calling bullshit. In the words of our President: You didn't build that: