The 16-year-old Taieri College pupil spent seven months creating his remote controlled iPod Super Dock which allows him to connect his iPod to large sound systems or computers - all because there was no affordable equivalent in electronics stores.
While the Super Dock may have been no more than a means to an end when Ben started building it, the invention won him first equal place in the 2008 New Zealand Bright Sparks HiTech Competition in October last year.
Then it won one of two Royal Society of New Zealand travel awards at the Genesis Energy Realise the Dream Competition, which paid for him to represent New Zealand at the International Science and Technology Fair in Taipei at the weekend.
He was joined at the international competition by Mt Roskill Grammar School pupil Abhilash Kamineni (16), who was second in the engineering category with his project, a multipurpose robotic arm.
Secondary pupils from 25 countries participated in the event. Other projects at the event included rocket performance research, a touch-screen clock, a home-made spectrometer and a wood-powered engine.
Despite Ben's electronic genius, he was unable to fix his mobile phone when it broke soon after arriving in Taiwan.
He had been keeping in touch with his family via email and irregular landline telephone calls.
He could not be contacted yesterday, but his mother, Lynne Mulholland, said Ben was overjoyed with the result.
At every leg of the competition, he had maintained an air of modesty because the standard of competition had been very high, she said.
"He's put such a lot of work into it but he still didn't see this coming. He was very surprised."
Ben will return to Mosgiel this evening.
