Nelson Swanson

Nelson Swanson is a young inventor in the town of Odyssey. In Kidsboro, the children's town of clubhouses that Whit builds in the woods, Nelson serves as the official town inventor. He also belongs to the Square One Club, a group of boys who take machines apart in Hagler's Junkyard to learn how they work. Nelson is clever, careful, and honest at heart, but insecure. His longing to feel needed can pull him into schemes he later regrets, and his gadgets and formulas have a way of solving one problem while creating another. He counts Kidsboro's mayor Ryan Cummings and detective Matthew Parker among his friends. Nelson also asks big questions, leading his school science club and pressing Eugene Meltsner about design and meaning in the world around him.