The 14-year-old Muslim boy who was arrested Monday and suspended from school after his homemade clock was mistaken for a bomb is changing schools.
Ahmed Mohamed was all smiles as he spoke outside his home in Irving, Texas, on Wednesday, saying that he'll spend the rest of his three-day school suspension looking to transfer out of MacArthur High School.
"I’m the person who built a clock and got in a lot of trouble for it," he said in an interview aired by Fox News.
"I built the clock to impress my teacher, but when I showed it to her, she thought it was a threat to her. It was really sad that she took the wrong impression from it and I got arrested for it later that day."
Ahmed was pulled from class Monday and taken to a detention center after showing the digital clock to teachers at his suburban Dallas high school.
Irving Police Chief Larry Boyd said the clock looked "suspicious in nature," but there was no evidence the boy meant to cause alarm at school. Boyd considers the case closed.
The teen said he's keeping his head up, and thanked President Barack Obama, Mark Zuckerberg and countless others on social media for taking his side.
Ahmed said he has several inventions in the works, and hopes to study at MIT when he graduates. He encouraged kids everywhere to follow their dreams, regardless of the consequences.
"Go for it! Don't let people change who you are, even if you get a consequence for it. I suggest you still show it to people, at least show them your talent."
In a matter of hours, the clock made Ahmed a star on social media, with #IStandWithAhmed tweeted more than 900,000 times by late Wednesday afternoon.
Linda Moreno, an attorney representing Ahmed, said the family is considering taking legal action against police after officers interrogated, handcuffed, searched, booked and fingerprinted the teen. She would not give details on questions he was asked by police.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.