Why did you choose bows?

I just stumbled upon it. When I was a boy, I wasn’t allowed to play computer games, so I just went around looking for something to do. I was 12 when I found a piece of wood and made a bow from it. When a child is given a bow, they know how to shoot it immediately, instinctively. No one has to teach them.

What’s the most challenging part of making a bow?

Gathering the materials. It’s very hard to find great trees.

So what makes a great tree?

Straight mulberry or hard yew. They’re not easy to find in Seoul. It’s just a great concrete forest.

Read a recap of Dong Woo Jang »

Photo: James Duncan Davidson

The Korean education system is famed for its high levels of scholastic achievement, but as 15-year-old Seoul native Dong Woo Jang professes, not everyone responds to this kind of “pressure cooking” in the same way. His response to the high-pressure environment was an unusual one: to make wooden bows. Why? He’s not sure. Perhaps all that stress brought out his caveman instincts.

At age 12, Jang’s bow obsession began. He would wander around the woods next to the highway that ran past his apartment, collecting mulberry wood with saws, knives, sickles and axes that he kept in his backpack. He then wrapped the wood in a towel and brought it home. He spent late nights bending and polishing the wood until a bow took shape. One day he even set a fire … on his rooftop. His mother had to convince the police he hadn’t committed a premeditated arson.

After two years of trial-and-error work, Jang managed to complete his ideal bow. It has:

1. Curved tips to maximize springiness
2. A belly drawn inward for higher draw weight, for more power
3. Sinew used in the outer layer of the limb for maximum tension storage
4. Horn, used to store energy in compression

It turns out that Jang’s ideal bow resembles the traditional Korean bow, which he never expected. Through bow-making Jang was, without even knowing it, brought back in touch with his heritage. Jang concludes by describing his ideal world: a “bowtopia,” in which every person is needed exactly where they are, just like the fibers in a bow.

The speakers who appeared in this session. Click on their name to read a full recap of their talk:

In his film “Mars et Avril,” Martin Villeneuve brings his sci-fi romance graphic novel to glorious life.

Andrew McAfee studies how information technology affects businesses and society.

Dong Woo Jang turns an unusual stick of bamboo into an archer’s bow — an exploration of his cultural heritage and a metaphor for his perfect world.

Jinsop Lee is an industrial designer who believes that great design appeals to all five senses.

Barb Stuckey makes food for a living — and wants to help you taste things better.

Yu “Jordy” Fu‘s dream is to make this world a better place through art, design and architecture.

Jacky Myint designed the boundary-breaking news feature “Snow Fall” for NYTimes.com.

At Novalia, Kate Stone and her team use ordinary printing presses to manufacture interactive electronics, which combine touch-sensitive ink technology and printed circuits into unique and cost-effective products.

A paper on carbon nanotubes, a biology lecture on antibodies and a flash of insight led 15-year-old Jack Andraka to design a cheaper, more sensitive pancreatic cancer test.