Real life 'Young Sheldon': 11-year-old Chinese boy writes 600-line-long code to build a rocket

While most people think that the plot of Young Sheldon is a far-fetched fiction, a Chinese boy has left netizens shocked after he wrote a 600-line code to build a rocket.

Yan Hongsen, who taught himself programming, physics, and chemistry is now being dubbed as the “rocket boy” after the 11-year-old has been documenting his rocket development journey, garnering over 4 lakh followers on social media, as per a report in the South China Morning Post.

Yan fell in love with rockets ever since he witnessed the Long March-2 liftoff when he was merely four-years-old.

Since then, he has been taking online courses and self-studying physics and chemistry. Seeing his enthusiasm for the subject, Yan's parents transformed their living room into a rocket research studio. Last year, the astronomy enthusiast launched his first rocket and called it Sen Xing, which translated to “moving forward”.

However, his project was not successful as the booster was unable to deploy its parachute after separation, leading to the crash of the rocket.

“The nitrocellulose didn’t explode as expected, the spring and lithium battery were also damaged. Maybe there is still an issue with the rocket’s body connection,” the publication quoted Yan as saying.

Meanwhile, the boy's father said that despite the crash of the rocket, for him, the rocket's first flight was "still a success."

Undeterred by the failure, Yan is now modifying the second version of his rocket, hoping for a smooth launch this time. Yan's future plan as per his father is to get into one of the seven most prestigious civilian defence universities in the country.

“As parents, we fully support our child’s dreams. If he encounters technical difficulties that he can’t solve, he always contacts me, and I try my best to reach out to experts for help,” his father who works in tourism told the Post.

This is not the first time Yan has garnered attention for his knowledge in the subject matter. Reportedly, in 2022 he had pointed out factual errors in an astronomy documentary, gaining recognition.