With today’s constant bombardment of television, movies and video games our greatest natural resource is being depleted — our youth’s brain power. We’ve all heard the cliché, “When I was your age we didn’t watch TV,” but it’s more severe than that. Our youth have become slaves to convenience, and it’s arguably the inconveniences of life that spur innovation and invention.

Now, I’m not trying to say that we’re tapped out on ideas by any means, but our valuable, fresh thinkers devote far more time to analyzing pop culture than thinking critically about ideas and concepts. I’m amazed at how well someone can recite the history of a given actor at any given time, but can’t put their minds to use mechanically and intuitively as a problem solver. It’s like our youth have become smarter, but lazier.

But not all is lost. I try to keep up with the up-and-coming inventors of tomorrow. Recently I read about this talented 17-year-old creator, Mary Masterman. She recently scored a $100,000 scholarship through the Intel Talent Search in Washington this past March. She manufactured, by herself, a spectrograph — a device used to identify characteristics of different kinds of molecules. What’s so interesting isn’t so much what she created, but how she created it. A typical spectrograph costs scientists thousands of dollars. Mary, the innovative teen that she is, built one for 300 bucks. Her goal was to make using a spectrograph affordable for forensic historians and scientists and for the medical and art fields.

According to the New York Times, Mary spent about six months on the project. She used half the time to build it and the other half to make it work. That’s some perseverance for a young inventor. While her peers focus on television, malls, parties or music, she’s transforming our ability to analyze molecules, changing the world.

But Mary is not alone. Discovery magazine recently focused on a Michigan teen who achieved nuclear fusion in his basement. Yup, you read that right. A high school senior essentially smashed together hydrogen atoms to form helium with parts he picked up off of eBay. Thiago Olsen, the teen scientist behind this project, told Discovery that it was “a weekend project” for him.

These two are among the elite inventors and idea people that will be leading our future. I think it’s important we recognize young creatives like Mary and Thiago. I see them as inspiration for me as an inventor, and if you’re an inventor, you should too. If you’re an up-and-coming inventor and think you can’t follow through, just think about how these teens redefined forensic science and physics in their homes with nothing more than a high school education.