Owen Nannarone at home in Scituate, Mass. Photo: M. Scott Brauer/Wired

As a lawyer who works in Silicon Valley and Cambridge, Massachusetts, Len Nannarone has helped his fair share of tech companies. But the most important startup he's advised is much closer to home: his 10-year-old son, Owen, a budding inventor and entrepreneur.

At the Nannarone home in suburban Boston one recent Sunday, father and son discuss Owen's latest invention, a golf tee that records the speed and angle of the club to analyze a swing. Len is outgoing and energetic, but Owen remains quiet, his eyes partially hidden by his shock of brown hair. He deftly peels the protective cover off an alkaline battery, as if shelling a peanut, while dad explains the impetus for their design.

See, Owen takes golf lessons, and his coach uses a swing analyzer that's just too big and clunky for Owen. "They have these huge machines," Owen says, momentarily taking his eyes off the battery. Len chimes in. "He said, 'Dad, can't they put all that stuff in a golf tee?'"

So the two got to work on what has to be the world's cutest patent application: a drawing of a golf tee that shows where a small camera will go. Inside the ball, a GPS sensor will determine how far the ball travels. Together, the sensor and camera will send data to a smartphone for instant swing analysis. "It's supposed to track speed and distance," Owen says.

Len and Owen posted the design on Quirky, the user-submitted design website, where the two have a joint account. Ostensibly, dad helped out because Owen's too young to submit things to Quirky. But it's clear Len is having as much fun as Owen. Owen accompanies his father on business trips, where the youngster gets to see grown ups who think just like him. It's a good chance to talk with professionals about coding his Arduino, learn the merits of fiber optic cables, or just play video games.

The swing analyzer still needs work, though. Father and son are looking for just the right camera to put in the tee. Owen saw a pinhole camera in a toy catalog and thinks that might work, and he plans to scour Fry's next time he accompanies his father to Silicon Valley. Then, he'll have what he needs to build the tee. "It's not that small yet, but it will be eventually," Owen said. Once it's done, he hopes his golf instructor will take note. "Probably, they'd replace those machines."

With a little help from his dad, Owen has designed an interactive golf tee that would, in his own words, "allow golfers to have real-time data about their golf swing." He got the idea during a golf lesson.

Owen and his father Len frequently visit the dump in Scituate to look for parts and equipment to use or repair. Photo: M. Scott Brauer/Wired

For Owen's parents, however, the product isn't as important as the process. Owen didn't quite fit in a traditional school environment, where he got into trouble and clashed with students and teachers. He's homeschooled by his mother Korey now. Although the classroom may not have worked out for him, Owen's always been comfortable opening things up, taking them apart and figuring out how they work. It started at age six, when he took all the doors in his house off their hinges. Since then, he's pulled worn-out televisions and lawnmowers from the trash to disassemble them, and even once took apart his father's computer — an incident Len laughed off with an eye roll. Clearly, it wasn't the only time Owen's curiosity had gotten in the way of normal household operations.

Owen's parents believe drawing patent applications and thinking of new inventions is a great way for Owen to focus his energy, which might otherwise get him in to trouble. They created a workspace for him in the basement, an orderly table with discarded electronics in various states of disassembly, set amidst his sisters' dollhouses and toys. It's where Owen learned to solder, and where he recently spent an afternoon swapping out a blown fuse in a scrapped TV he and his dad picked from the trash during a father-son expedition to the dump.

Tinkering allows Owen to do things that interest him, while also learning about math and science. No less important, he's learning to follow-through and finish what he starts.

"The goal is to take these skills and channel them in the right direction," said Korey.

Considering that Owen is 10, that may be the hardest part of all. After proudly showing off his workshop, Owen decided it was time to show off his reptile collection — until an iguana got loose in the living room.

Beyond his school curriculum, Owen attends a local after-school program where scientists and engineers help kids with hands-on projects like a smart golf tee. Korey says it's a good chance for Owen to interact with adults and learn problem-solving skills in a way that the traditional elementary school environment doesn't encourage. For Owen, leaving school also meant following in the footsteps of his role model, Sir Richard Branson. Like Branson, Owen is dyslexic. Also like Branson, Owen wants to make a lot of money, and he's well on his way. When he fixes something, he sells it on Craigslist, and has already made enough money to pay for half of a small, 16-foot boat he shares with his father.

To a 10-year-old, it might as well be a yacht — an auspicious beginning for a young entrepreneur.

The GPS golf tee is not the first time Owen tried his hand at invention. Two years ago, he developed the EZ-Cinch Net, a fishing net with closeable compartments that allow him to collect multiple turtles or frogs from nearby bogs without the animals contacting one another. Photo: M. Scott Brauer/Wired

Owen has his own workstation in his family's basement, where he likes to take apart and repair electronics and motors. Photo: M. Scott Brauer/Wired