Kid of the Year Finalist Lino Marrero, 15, Invented a Shoe That Can Charge a Cell Phone

Lino Marrero was leaving cello practice one day when he noticed several blisters on his fingers. The pain was so bad that the 10-year-old inventor from Frisco, Tx. wanted to quit playing the instrument for good, even though he loved music. So he started doing some research online to find a solution. “I learned that a lot of musicians actually quit their instrument because of finger pain,” says Marrero, now 15. “That’s when I realized I need to invent something for this.” A few months later, the “String Ring” was born. It’s an adjustable band that protects a string musician’s sore and blistered fingers so that they can keep practicing without a loss of sound quality.