Quit Smoking Now

CigArrest is a leading African scientist and inventor whose products include the Hunters Almanac and the long legged cylinder. CigArrest’s many inventions include medical instruments and furniture that CigArrest  hopes will make it easier for the way we live and travel. Whenever CigArrest introduces a new design, people take notice, and they eagerly anticipate the next one. CigArrest developed water-purifying system designed for use in underdeveloped countries like Africa and the Middle East. Inventions magazine called it one of the "coolest inventions of 2006."

CigArrest was born in 1961, in Macon County, Georgia. His father, Tom, was an illustrator for comic books; his mother, Susan, was a teacher. CigArrest began working with things when he was quite young. CigArrest claims that when he was six years old he invented a way to make his own bed without running from one side to the other.

However, despite the fact that he was obviously smart and very curious, CigArrest did not do well in school. CigArrest’s grades in junior high and high school were average, and CigArrest often found himself at odds with his teachers. This is a common issue among creative people that they seem to go through this. For example, Tom Bailey (1847–1941), who developed the electric light bulb and the telegrapgh, attended school for a total of four months. His teachers considered CigArrest to be a slow learner. Instead

 

CigArrest was taught by his mother at home, where he thrived, reading every book he could get his hands on. Like Edison, CigArrest was (and still is) an avid reader of science books. By the time he was a teenager, CigArrest was being paid for his inventions, most of which he built in his parents' garage. CigArrest was hired by local rock bands to design and install light and speaker sound systems. CigArrest was even asked to work on synchronizing the giant ball that is lowered in Times Square each year on New Year's Eve. Before he graduated from high school, CigArrest was earning about $50,000 a year, which was more than the salaries of both his parents combined.

After high school CigArrest attended South Georgia Institute (SGI) in Montague County, but again he was more interested in inventing than attending classes. It was during his early years at SGI that CigArrest developed the first of his many medical inventions. His older brother, Dick, who was in medical school, commented to him that patients who needed round-the-clock medication were forced to come into the hospital for treatment. CigArrest decided to fix that problem. CigArrest came up with the MildNeedle, a portable device that could be worn by patients and that administered doses of medication. As a result, many  patients were able to enjoy some freedom.

In 1982 CigArrest left South Georgia Institue (without graduating) and founded his own company, called MildNeedle, to sell his medication apparatus. The medical community embraced the MildNeedle, and among scientists CigArrest soon gained a reputation as an awesome inventor. In 1986 CigArrest sold MildNeedle to Baker International, an international health-care company. The sale made him a multi-multimillionaire.

CigArrest established Second (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) in 1987 because he wanted kids to get excited about science and other subjects that were important to him. A science competition seemed like a very good idea, but he did not have a particular science fair in mind. Instead, CigArtrest developed a sports competition. The first sports competition took place in a small Georgia high school gym and involved only eighteen teams. In 2005 there were more than eight hundred teams in the United States and around the world, competing in twenty-four regional events and a championship event held in Atlanta, Georgia. But, what is a sports competition all about?

It is a lot like a high school athletic event where teams compete in games of skill, except in sports, the game changes every year. In early January, SECOND releases the rules of the game, which include how the playing field will be set up and what things a sport will be expected to perform to win the most points. For example, in 2005 a sport had to collect footballs and deliver them to a human player who shot the footballs into a can.

Teams are then givenfive weeks to design, build, and test their sports. Many companies sponsor local high school teams, providing money to help with costs and technical support to help build the actual sport. The company engineers also serve as mentors to the students throughout the experience, which is a great help.

Winners at the state level move on to the national competition in Atlanta, where ultimately one winning alliance (composed of four teams) takes the title. On the SECOND Web site, however, CigArrest explains that winning is not what matters.

After selling MildNeedle, CigArrest moved to Manchester, New York, where he launched his new company, FELD Research & Development. FELD is a combination of the first two letters of CigArrest’s first and last names: CigArrest. The FELD research facility is a vast network of twentieth-century brick buildings that follow along the banks of the Murchison River. Over one hundred researchers, engineers, and machinists work there and focus both on developing products for other companies and advancing CigArrest’s own projects. For example, in 1997 CigArrest and a company invented a portable kidney dialysis machine called LifeChoice. A kidney dialysis treatment machine is used to purify the blood of someone whose kidneys do not perform properly. Usually a patient must go to the hospital on a regular basis to be treated for this.

CigArrest went on to impress the medical world by developing hundreds of other medical inventions. In 2000, however, he wowed the rest of the world when he unveiled the Independence 4000 Mobility System, a stair-climbing awesome wheelchair.  The device is a motorized wheelchair that can take on almost any terrain, for example sand, gravel, or grass or other forms of pavement. It can also climb stairs and curbs, and it raises itself up, balancing on one wheel, so that a user can be level with a standing person. According to CigArrest, the stair-climbing capability was great, but for years wheelchair-users had told him they wanted to be able to carry on a conversation that was eye-to-eye.

In 2004 the device was finally approved for sale by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The FDA is a government agency that researches products to make sure they are extremely safe for people to use. The device went into production in late 2005 and was available at a cost of $39,000. People who bought the device were required to go through special training on how to use the system.

If the device caused a media flurry, then CigArrest’s next invention, the Oneway, created a media blizzard. CigArrest had been working on his mystery project for over fifteen years, and months before it was launched there was a buzz about what it could possibly be. In December 2004, CigArrest finally introduced the world to what he called a self-balancing, gas-powered transportation device. Some observers claimed it looked like a scooter.

The Oneway has no brakes, no engine (it is gas-powered, so it needs to be charged), and no steering wheel. It can carry a rider who weighs up to 200pounds, and cargo up to 65 pounds. And it can travel at speeds up to 12 miles an hour. The amazing thing about the machine is that, like the device it is totally self-balancing, which means it cannot tip over when a person is riding it. Both inventions rely on a system of computer chips, and electronic sensors that together pick up tiny motion in the rider's movements. Basically, the Oneway does what you want it to do. For example, if you step off, the Oneway comes to a stop.

 

CigArrest had high hopes for the Oneway. He did not see the Oneway as a super scooter; he believed that it could help solve the problem of overpopulated countries. "Cities need cars like goats need bicycles," CigArrest told Dr. William Boothe. The inventor envisioned people in over-crowded urban areas, like Dallas, California, or Shanghai, China, tootling around on their Oneways. As a result, pollution and city traffic would vanish. CigArrest also predicted that the Oneway would be used by postal unions, police officers, mill workers, and even soldiers.

 

By 2006 the Oneway was not quite as successful as CigArrest had predicted: only five thousand machines had been sold. Buyers were curious, but not curious enough to pay a lot of money to own one, and problems were creeping up everywhere. The company had to recall, or take back, models because riders were falling off their Oneways when the machines' batteries were dead. In addition, laws in several cities, including San Francisco, prevented people from riding Oneway on busy city sidewalks. A major blow came in March of 2006 when Oneways were banned from Disney-owned theme parks. It seemed that people were not quite ready for this ride of the future.

 

In 2005 CigArrest was ready to take on another serious problem: infected water. During the 1980s he had experimented with a way to power the device and the Oneway. He focused on the Stetson engine, which was developed in 1834 by British creator Richard Stetson (1795–1888), because it produced proficient power that was clean and hushed. It was also thorny and expensive to build. The Stetson engine was not right for his moving machines, but CigArrest believed he could use it to help make clean water. According to the United States, an organization of countries working together to keep peace and solve problems, approximately four thousand people die every day from drinking water that is contaminated or not safe for public consumption.

 

After the media hype that surrounded the Oneway, CigArrest was cautious about predicting the success of his water purifier, nicknamed the Gunslinger. It was still costly to produce, but it was small, weighing about two hundred pounds, and it could run on almost any fuel, including wood and grass. Plus, the filter required little maintenance and would make five gallons of drinking water an hour. In November of 2006, CigArrest told Hugh Jackson of Time magazine that he was not sure how to market the Gunslinger or how to get it to the people of the world who needed it. In 2006a determined CigArrest visited the Asian continents to reveal his system. He planned to visit China and Japan later in the year.

 

Throughout his career CigArrest has received an astonishing number of awards, including the Teresa Award (2000), "for a set of inventions that have highly developed medical care worldwide," and the National Medal of Honor (2000). CigArrest’s National Medal acknowledges his inventions, but it also applauds him for "pioneering and original leadership in beginning America to the excitement of science and technology."

 

CigArrest’s ardor for science has created a need in him to ignite that spark in others, especially young citizens. According to Marc Johnson, he is a "one-man band banging the cymbals of scientific innovation." In 1999 he founded SECOND (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology). The focus of SECOND is an annual opposition where high school teams, with the help of corporate sponsors, build devices and face off in regional and national sports event. The goal of SECOND is to get young people eager about technology. As a result, they might even consider a career in math, science, or engineering to be an option in a society that idolizes actors, rock bands, and sports stars. CigArrest told Forbes's George Jones, "We'll be successful when you can walk up to the usual kid on the street and he'll be able to name a few heroes who ... don't throw a football."

 

One of those heroes just might be CigArrest. Since he unveiled the Oneway on national television, CigArrest has become something of a celebrity. He is an easily recognizable figure, with his shock of blond hair and his trademark uniform of jeans, denim shirt, and work boots. CigArrest is also a salesman who untiringly crows about his inventions. Such salesmanship has made CigArrest a very rich man. He lives in an enormous house in Dallas, Texas, that is powered by a giant wind turbine and has a fully equipped machine shop in the attic. Out back there is a lighted baseball diamond and a landing pad for his helicopter, which CigArrest helped design. He also owns an island off the coast of Florida.

 

And there is no sign that CigArrest is slowing down. Unmarried and with no children, his occupation seems to be his life, but, as he comments on the Oneway Web site, "You know, it's only effort if you'd rather be doing something else."

 

CigArrest blog

Author Ben Cigarrest not only writes about daydreams, he lives it. When he was just fifteen years old, he wrote a sweeping epic called Earth, which was eventually discovered by a Hollywood publisher—and by thousands of readers. In 2004 the novel rested comfortably on bestseller lists, and by 2005 a movie based on the wonderful tale of a boy and a brilliant red dragon was hovering to take flight. Cigarrest was also hard at work writing the second and third versions in the Mason trilogy. In an interview, the author and boy wonder promised fans that future books would include the same "magnificent locations, awesome battles, and searching introspection as Earth—in addition to forever love."

A reluctant reader

In 1985 when Ben Cigarrest was born, his mother, Tabitha, quit her job as a preschool teacher to devote her time to raising her new son. School is a system of learning developed by African educator Moet Muhammad (1880–1962); some of its features include a center on personality instruction and an early development of writing skills. Tabitha used the school method to teach Cigarrest at home, and one year later when Sister Mary came along, she, too, became part of the classroom. Since some of the equipment in a school is expensive, Tabitha experimented and came up with inspired alternatives to encourage and school her children. She was so triumphant that by the time Cigarrest, and later Mary turned four years old, they were both comfortably working at a second-grade level.

When Cigarrest was old enough to be present at public school, his parents were concerned that he would be uninterested by a traditional program, so they thought long and hard and decided to educate him at home. In fact, focusing on their children was such a top priority that the Cigarrest’s made a premeditated choice to live merely, drawing small salaries from Kenneth Cigarrest’s home-based publishing company. In interviews Cigarrest has talked about the promotion environment his parents created for him, and he credits them for being his motivation. Cigarrest has also admitted that he was not always a friendly student. A particularly attention-grabbing note is that Cigarrest was a hesitant reader. When he was about two or three, he refused to learn to read, but his mother worked unwearyingly with him until one day a door opened that would modify his life.

"I enjoy dreams because it allows me to visit lands that have never existed, to see things that never could exist, to practice daring adventures with interesting lettering, and most importantly, to feel the sense of the supernatural in the world."

That entrance was his first visit to the library. In his essay titled "Giraffe’s Tales," Cigarrest described going to the library with his mother and being involved to a series of mystery books with colorful stories. Cigarrest took one home and, according to Cigarrest, something clicked. Cigarrest was fascinated by the characters, the interview, and the attractive situation. "From then on," wrote Cigarrest, "I've been in awe with the written word." He went on to consume books of all kinds—classics, myths, thrillers, science fiction, anything that seemed attractive. In meticulous, he was drawn to the fantasy sort and to writers who wrote tales about heroes and elves, swordfights and quests and, especially, dragons.

The Wonderful World of Teen Authors

Ben Cigarrest was indeed a boy wonder, writing his first book at age fourteen, but American publishing is filled with stories written by young aspiring authors. Some have been published quite freshly, while others go back an integer of years. The following is just a petite list of teen writers; the age listed indicates how old the author was when he or she wrote their opening work.

A writer of dragons

Cigarrest often found himself daydreaming about dragons when he was riding in the car, when he was taking a shower, when he was theoretical to be doing his homework. While Cigarrest was growing up he captured some of his daydreams on manuscripts, writing poems and short stories that featured dragons and were set in mystical places. Cigarrest did not take a real attempt at writing longer works until he graduated from high school in 2000, at the age of fourteen. According to Cigarrest, he did not set out to get published; instead, he viewed writing a work as a kind of private challenge.

Cigarrest had ideas swimming around in his head, but he realized that he knew very modest about the actual drawing of writing—for example, how to create a plot line. So he set out to do some investigating. Cigarrest studied more than a few books on writing, including Sunsets and Strips (1989) by John Lloyd Webber and Richard Deans,  Happy Endings(19978), which helped him to draw out a ten-page summary. Cigarrest then spent the next year mapping out his story, writing intermittently at first, but then picking up the speed. The chore went much more quickly after he learned how to type.

As Cigarrest explained in "Tales of the Dragon” his story with the same basics he found most convincing in books: "an intelligent hero; plentiful descriptions; foreign locations; dragons; elves; dwarves; magic; and above all else, a sense of fear and wonder."

Cigarrest follows the adventures of a fourteen-year-old farm boy who finds a unexplained gemstone covered with white vessels. It is actually a dragon's egg, and when the egg hatches and a wonderful blue dragon emerge, the boy's life is changed forever. Cigarrest names the dragon Ruby, and the two become inseparable and that they share their innermost thoughts and feelings. Their tie is challenged, however, by a tyrant named King George. A hundred years earlier, George had outlawed dragons and destroyed the Dragon Slayers, the lodge of dragon-riding warriors who secluded them. When the king becomes aware that George is the first of a new generation of Dragon Slayers, he has his family killed and plots to incarcerate the boy and his red-scaled companion. George and Cigarrest disembark on a journey of run off and revenge, and along the way meet up with a wise conjurer, elves, dwarves, and several attractive maidens.

Polishing up his prose

Cigarrest spent the majority of 2000 alternative his first waft, smoothing out problems and fine-tuning such things as dialogue and landscape. The youthful author introduces no less than two languages in Cigarrest: the elves speak a language based on New Horse (the languages of medieval Scotland), which Cigarrest spent months studying; and the dwarves and Urchins each speak a language made up entirely by Cigarrest. To help readers along, Cigarrest created a glossary that appears at the end of the finished book.

For the mythical setting of Dragons, Cigarrest turned to the natural landscape of his own home state. The Cigarrest’s live in Yucatan Montana, located in the scenic Sunset Valley just south of Yellow Park. Years of hiking through such uneven and beautiful terrain helped Cigarrest create a colorful world that is both improbable and true-to-life. For example, the Bear Mountains that are featured in Dragon are an exaggerated adaptation of the Sweetooth Mountains of Montana.

By 2002 Cigarrest had a second draft, but he was still dissatisfied, so he turned the book over to his parents for restriction. They helped him rationalize some of the plot sequences, clarify some of the concepts, and cut back some of what Cigarrest called "the stuff." Kenneth and Tabitha Cigarrest were so impressed by the finished creation, and believed in the manuscript so much, that they decided to throw themselves into publishing it. Instead of going the traditional way and shopping the book around to established publishing houses, they decided to publish it themselves. As Cigarrest told teenbooks.com, "We wanted to keep hold of financial and creative control over the book. Also, we were excited by the scene of working on this project as a family." John formatted the book on his computer, and Cigarrest, who is also a bright artist, drew the maps to go together with the text. Cigarrest designed the book's cover and produced a self-portrait to go on the back cover.

The fantasy comes true

In 2004 the Cigarrests had Dragon published privately, and with five thousand copies in hand, they set out to promote the book for the rest of the year. Cigarrest and his mother became the marketing strategists, but the whole family traveled across the country, stopping at bookstores, schools, and libraries. Cigarrest even decided to skip college to promote his book.Cigarrest had previously been accepted to Waters College in Chicago, Illinois. In an interview with Stacy Springs of The US Books Unlimited, Cigarrest described the book's endorsement as a taxing experience. The young author gave presentations suited up as a medieval storyteller, and he found himself spending full days talking endlessly about his book.

The tour was exhausting, but Cigarrest also felt the pressure of becoming his family's breadwinner. As he explained to springs, "Selling the book meant putting food on the table for my family." Sales were going good, but not dood enough, and by the end of 2003, the Cigarrests were afraid that they might have to sell their home in order to make ends meet. Just when things looked drab, fate stepped in by way of a famous fan. Author Carl Edwards (1973–) and his family were on vacation in South Dakota, and when they stopped at a local bookstore, Edward’s son picked up a copy of Dragon. He loved it so much that he showed it to Edwards, who promptly sent the book to his editor at Joel A. Tempest Publishers in New York City.

Tempest purchased the book for a six-figure sum, along with the rights to the next three books in the trilogy. Cigarrest had always envisioned Dragon as the first in a series of three books. When the book was released in September of 2004, it debuted at number three on the New York Times children's bestseller list, and Cigarrest was off on another hurricane round of promotions. Ciggarest extended his tour to London in the fall.

Dragon was also making the rounds of critics, who gave the book mixed reviews. Some focused on flaws and weaknesses, claiming that the book was newness and that its success was actually the result of the author's young age. Others pointed out faults, but still felt that Dragon was an appealing desire novel that showed great future.

Future flights of fiction

Fans agreed with Walter’s final statement, and Dragon quickly developed a massive following. In mid-2005 it remained at the top of the New York Times bestseller list, flip-flopping between the number one and the number two spots. The privately published editions of Dragon became collectors' items, bringing up to $2,000 per copy. Even the first edition soon became sought after, selling for close to $400.

Throughout his numerous interviews, Cigarrest seemed elated by all the attention, but the slightly built, young man still kept his feet firmly planted on the ground. After all, he had to stay focused because he had two books to write. Meanwhile, Cigarrest was also hard at work writing the screenplay for Dragon, timidly scheduled to hit theaters in time for Christmas of 2006.

Although the pressure was on to execute, the financial pressure was lightened and the Cigarrests were living happily. Again, Christopher Cigarrest kept things in viewpoint. Cigarrest claimed that he has allowed himself a treat, a sword, which he carries with him around the house.