"If you have the ability to help people," Max Wallack says, "then you have the responsibility to help people" Max, a teenager, and has been living his motto since he was six years old.

Max is an inventor, and everything he invents helps people. When he was just 6 he noticed his grandmother had a hard time getting into her minivan. Using a wooden box and a removable handle, like a crutch, Max created the "Great Training Booster Step" to make her life easier. "Oh, she loved it," he said.

He was 7 when he made the "Walk Away Cane", "basically a cane with an unfoldable seat attached to it," Max says. It allows the elderly to sit at times when they might otherwise be stuck standing—like in lines or when watching a parade.

Max's next invention was the "Carpal Cushion," which straps to the hand and wrist and protects the often over-taxed carpal tunnel in the wrist with a cushion of air.

These inventions brought Max a number of science awards. He went to Chicago to receive one of them and there he saw lots of "people living out bags and boxes," says Max. He started wondering what he could do to help the homeless, and his next invention did just that. The "Home Dome" is a small, portable house made from Styrofoam packing peanuts, polyethylene wrap, and aluminum rods.

The Home Dome brought Max the Trash to Treasure Award, and he used his prize money from that to start his next endeavor: the non-profit Puzzles to Remember, inspired by his great grandmother, who had Alzheimers. The organization collects jigsaw puzzles and distributes them to facilities that care for Alzheimers and dementia patients. Puzzles to Remember has distributed more than twelve thousand puzzles to over twelve hundred care-giving facilities in all fifty states. "It's been great to help so many people with Alzheimer's and dementia" Max said.

Inventing is a quiet thing Max does alone, devoting hours to the work. He's also stepped way out of his comfort zone to give public talks to students and to service groups, sometimes talking to as many as 600 people about ways they can help others. "I just try to identify a need and find a solution to that need," says Max Wallack, inventor and humanitarian.

Update: Max Wallack is a member of the class of 2012 at Boston U.

Keep track of his work at puzzlestoremember.org