13-Year-Old Creates Nuclear Fusion in Dallas Garage

When most kids were struggling through remote learning during the pandemic, eight-year-old Aidan McMillan was building a tabletop nuclear fusion reactor in Dallas.

Aidan created fusion two days before turning 13, an achievement that could earn him a Guinness World Record as the youngest person ever to accomplish this feat. The previous record holder completed fusion just hours before his 13th birthday, giving Aidan a narrow window to beat him.

His mother, Shirin Foroudi, says she knew early on that her son approached the world differently. He learned the alphabet backward first, mastering Z, Y, X before his ABCs.

The fusion project began when Aidan connected with Dallas Makerspace, a nonprofit community lab where he was the only child among adult innovators. A mentor named Russ told him about the existing world record and encouraged him to chase it.

"Fusion is important because first of all, it's an energy source," explained Carl Willis, a University of New Mexico professor who witnessed Aidan's achievement. "It is the process that powers stars, including the sun."

Willis turned his own teenage fusion hobby into a career and jumped at the chance to watch Aidan potentially make history.

The Ripple Effect

Aidan's success inspired his mother to launch something bigger. On May 4th last year, Foroudi opened Launchpad Incubator, a kid-friendly innovation space where young inventors can work independently without constant parental supervision.

"I am a chief nerd herder," Foroudi says. "It's getting the adult nerds and kid nerds together, and I love it."

She deliberately removed financial barriers so any child with big ideas can access tools and mentorship. The space runs on the belief that other brainiacs like Aidan exist everywhere, they just need the right support.

Aidan, now in high school, appreciates not having parents hovering while kids "just knit or look at their Instagram or whatever parents do these days."

Foroudi is currently compiling documentation to submit to Guinness World Records. After spending nearly half his life pursuing this dream, Aidan may soon have official confirmation that his garage experiment made history and inspired a movement giving other young scientists room to shine.