my name is jackson cota and i'm 11 years
old i love baseball being on the
baseball diamond makes me happiest
baseball is just one of my passions
there is just naturally a lot of
thinking that that's involved with it
statistics
and where you have to be on each play
and things like that
[Music]
well i took a test to get into our
our school's gifted and talented program
and mensah somehow found out about it
and we sent in some applications and and
i was accepted into mensa based on those
test scores
when i was really little i could read
really long numbers 15 18 digits in the
quadrillions and quintillions i would
say that we probably knew something was
different about jackson
before he was two
he said 350
and i'm like how do you know that
and i got a napkin and a pen and i put a
one in front of it and he said 1 350 and
then i put a number in front of that
he's like 21 350 and he just kept going
until my napkin was filled with probably
up to 15 digits and we had never taught
him well who would teach a two-year-old
right right you know there's a rhythm to
numbers and just something about that is
very
in a weird way very simple for him
a lot of times i i'm able to do what i
do pretty naturally
this is a long one usually i try to do
it without usually a calculator if i can
i was doing these really advanced things
like algebra geometry and things like
that
numbers can be found everywhere you can
find them
maybe at a supermarket you can find them
in construction the lengths of maybe
walls that you have to put up you can
really just find math everywhere early
on he was just so hyper focused on
whatever it was in front of him and
um
he would rather
sort shapes by their attributes than run
around with trucks or things like that
[Music]
this is a blueprint of what my rube
goldberg machine will be like there is
rarely an occasion where i'll make a
rube goldberg machine that works on the
first try but if i plan everything out
well and i test it out enough sometimes
if i get i get lucky and it'll work on
the first try
big thing with this is basically
a lot of times you have to try and try
again basically it's all about trial and
error
[Music]
it's fascinating for me to see how all
the parts work together to come to
complete a task
all right attempt number five in three
two
one
all right good good all righty come on
come on
is that going
yes
he's
gifted in other areas and has heightened
senses in other areas that have
compensated and made up for this deficit
that so much so that you don't even know
that he has it
[Music]
rox come on down one of my coping skills
is i look at the person's mouth that's
talking to me
and i can read their lips so that
that a lot of times lets me know what
they're saying when he's
four and five you start thinking about
you know preschool and kindergarten and
those things and everyone's like what
are you gonna do you're gonna put him in
like fifth grade and we're like no that
that didn't ever seem like something we
would have done and not to mention matt
matt said
well okay he knows his multiplication
facts he's four years old he can read he
can do all these things but he can't tie
his shoes
we want him to be able to have an impact
on people in order to do that
we believe that he needs to be able to
interact with people
and socialize with people
and we don't feel that you learn how to
do that if you're not with your peers i
like a comment jackson made one time um
after an academic competition he said
you know
this doesn't define who i am i'm more
than
just you know
able to solve math problems or equations
higher than he's he's more than that
graduating college at age 11 is not
something that i'd want to do because i
wouldn't be able to do things i love
like play baseball or hang out with my
friends and just be a kid
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