At the age of 14, he was detained by police after taking a homemade clock to his high school in Irving, Texas. His English teacher believed the clock resembled a bomb, and the police were called. He was taken in handcuffs to juvenile detention for making a hoax bomb, fingerprinted, his mugshot taken, and interrogated. Police determined that he had no malicious intent and all charges were dropped, but the school suspended him for three days. The incident went viral on Twitter and sparked debates on racial profiling and Islamophobia. Many schools offered to enroll him. He received support from President
Barack Obama, who invited him to bring his clock to the White House to "inspire more kids like [him] to like science." He also received invitations to Silicon Valley.
Mark Zuckerberg invited him to Facebook headquarters, and Google invited him to attend its science fair. [Sept 2015].