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"The 14 Most Inspirational Kids of 2012\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n1. Nine-Year-Old Caine Monroy \n\nCaine Monroy, 9, spent a summer building an awe-inspiring cardboard game arcade at his father's East Los Angeles used car parts store. Filmmaker Nirvan Mullick was one of Caine's first and only customers \u2014 that is, before Mullick orchestrated a flashmob of supporters to play with Caine's creative cardboard games. Each time a player scored, Caine would crawl under the box to dispense a thread of arcade tickets through a small slice in the box. \nMullick's 11-minute film about Caine's Arcade has been viewed more than 7 million times since it was uploaded in April. Caine's story sparked the imagination of kids around the world who have seen his project. \nThe Imagination Foundation was founded this year, in honor of the cardboard creation movement, to \"find, foster and fund creativity and entrepreneurship in kids.\" Nearly $220,000 has been donated to Caine's Arcade Scholarship Fund.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n2. 11-Year-Old Jacob Hughes \nThis Tennessee student mailed his hard-earned Halloween candy stash to kids in New York and New Jersey whose lives and trick-or-treating plans were disrupted by Hurricane Sandy. Hughes' generosity is inspiring.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n3. 15-Year-Old Kelvin Doe \n\nKelvin Doe is a self-taught engineer from Sierra Leone, West Africa. In his hometown, \"the lights come on once in a week, and the rest of the month, dark,\" the young student told thnkrtv. From metal and wire scraps, he made a battery to \"power lights in people\u2019s houses,\" an FM radio transmitter to disseminate news and a generator to power the device. This year, the young prodigy was invited to MIT as a guest resident by David Sengeh, a Ph.D. student at the research university's media lab. Doe became the youngest invitee to the Visiting Practitioner\u2019s Program for international development. \nSengeh believes Doe and the inspired youth of Sierra Leone can transform their country. For his next project, Doe plans to build a electricity-generating windmill for his community.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n4. 17-Year-Old Nithin Tumma \n\nWe are one step closer to less toxic and more effective breast cancer treatments, thanks to the groundbreaking research by 17-year-old Nithin Tumma, of Fort Gratiot, Mich. The teen scientist discovered doctors could slow the growth of cancer cells by suppressing certain proteins. He won the top $100,000 prize at the Intel Science Talent Search.\nImage courtesy of Intel.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n5. 15-Year-Old Clara Ma\n\nClara Ma is no ordinary Kansas teen. At 11 years old, the space enthusiast and lover of stars and planets named NASA's Mars Science Laboratory Rover Curiosity, which has sent nearly 23,000 raw images from the alien planet.\nThis November for the first anniversary of the rover launch, she wrote a motivating essay. The Curiosity is just a robot, she said, reminding us that pushing the rover's success is the hard work, passion, love and commitment of thousands of people. Ma encourages amateur explorers to let curiosity take them far.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n6. 15-Year-Old Jack Andraka\n\nJack Andraka, 15, of Crownsville, Md., invented a ultra-sensitive and low-cost diagnostic test to quickly identify pancreatic cancer in its most early stages. The simple dip-stick sensor detects a protein called mesothelin in blood or urine before the cancer becomes invasive. The test is 90% accurate and 26,000 times cheaper than today's standard. \nCurrently, pancreatic cancer is typically detected when the cancer has already spread, which contributes to a low survival rate \u2014 only about 4% of patients live up to five years after diagnosis. \nThe 15-year-old's test only takes a few minutes to detect the slightest pancreatic cancer biomarkers. He won the top Gordon E. Moore Award in the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair \u2014 the world's largest high school science contest. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n7. 12-Year-Old Justen Beer\nThe young break dancer, a part of Hustle Kidz troupe, starred in a short film called With a Piece of Chalk in August. Beer's heartwarming performance and gravity-defying moves in the three-minute video help demonstrate how important an avenue of self-expression is for children. For Beer, dance was an escape from turmoil at home and bullies at school. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n8. 19-Year-Old Adam Cudworth\n\nThe British teen's DIY space project reminds us that space exploration is not necessarily expensive or exclusive. Adam Cudworth, a University of Nottingham engineering student, took amazing snapshots of the Earth with an ordinary camera he bought on eBay and launched into the atmosphere with a high-altitude balloon. \nHe spent 40 hours and nearly $600 in total to capture the most stunning photos of the Earth's curves. If you've ever dreamed of going on an interstellar voyage, it's never too late to get creative with a DIY space project.\nImage courtesy of Flickr, Adam Cudworth\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n9. 14-Year-Old Julia Bluhm \n\nJulia Bluhm is the 14-year-old ballet dancer from Waterville, Maine who stood up to one of the world's most popular teen magazines and won. Bluhm, along with the young activists at SPARK (Sexualization Protest: Action, Resistance, Knowledge), fight to challenge the portrayal of females in the media.\nThe eighth grader started a Change.org petition asking Seventeen to commit to unaltered photos and to showcase a \"diverse range of beauty.\" After the online petition gained more than 84,000 signatures, the teen magazine, led by editor in chief Ann Shoket, introduced the \"Body Peace Treaty\" in its August issue. The editorial staff promised to never change the size of a girl's face or body. Seventeen  agreed to show real girls in the magazine.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n10. 17-Year-Old Marian Bechtel \nMarian Bechtel created a mine-detecting device, which she presented at the White House Science Fair in February. Bechtel's simple, cheap and reliable detector can unearth abandoned landmines. When the detector lands above a buried landmine, it will send a clear signal to the wearer's headphones. Rocks and dirt won't resonate sounds the same way. Bechtel believes as technology has contributed to the amount of war that takes place, scientific advances can help us approach world peace.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n11. 14- and 15-Year-Olds Duro-Aina Adebola, Akindele Abiola, Faleke Oluwatoyin and Bello Eniola\n\nFour Nigerian schoolgirls aged 14 to 15, created an urine-powered generator that can turn a liter of urine into nearly six hours of electricity. The simple generator separates urine into nitrogen, hydrogen and water. The process turns the plentiful waste product into power. The $64 prototype could help Nigeria's 160 million citizens without access to electricity. \nImage Courtesy of Maker Faire Africa\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nThis year, children and teens have displayed an incredible amount of passion, determination and vigor to help others. Meet 11 inspirational young people who have already accomplished huge feats this year, and it's only the beginning of their careers.\nOne young activist prompted a major American magazine to ban heavily airbrushed photos. Another young Californian boy crafted an elaborate cardboard cut-out arcade and sparked the imaginations of hundreds of kids around the world.\n\n\nSEE ALSO: Cellphone Heart Test\u2019s Young Inventor Doesn\u2019t Own a Smartphone\n\nThese young innovators are set to discover a cure for cancer, save lives by pinpointing abandoned landmines and generally inspire the world to do better. Did we miss any of your favorite kid innovators in our list? Tell us in the comments. \nImage courtesy of Flickr,  Greenpin Chang"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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