Steven 'Steel' Trapp is a high school student.
He is pretty much a genius. He is definitely a tech geek. We meet him in the first recorded adventure as he stands on stage during a presentation at the annual National Science Challenge held in Washington, D.C. His particular project was his remote-controlled electronic sniffer, an interesting device which could give robots the sense of smell. He is, understandably, proud to be part of the proceedings but then as we are taken back a couple of weeks before the event, we learn how, excitement-wise, the attention of press and judges and family and a lot of onlookers paled in comparison to what had just transpired on his way across the country to the conference.
Oh, for the record and because it was interesting, his project name was the Fully Integrated Digital Odor Evaluator, or FIDOE, and "it is to robots what a bloodhound is to the world of dogs". Geeky, but I am impressed.
Steel Trapp is the son of Judy and Kyle. Mom is, well, Mom, very much a loving parent who is more than a little in awe of her son's intellect. Dad, an FBI agent who was away far too much and who, when home, was a very demanding father always pushing his son to do better no matter how well the younger Trapp was doing.
Trapp, who got his nickname in the 1st Grade from a teacher impressed with his photogenic memory and his "mind like a steel trap", knows he is a geek. He acts like one, always thinking and trying to study things. He also, to himself, looks like one. "His ears stuck out a little far. His mouth look small and his nose too big, all because of [his new large] glasses". Toss in "stringy long legs and straw-thin arms", Trapp concluded he was "the walking stereotype of the human nerd". He was relieved he at least did not yet have zits or he would just have to "go live on an uninhabited island".
As mentioned, Trapp was headed to a science exposition. He was travelling on a train with his mother; Dad, as often was the case, was absent. It should have been an exciting trip except for the lack of his father and knowing he might be presenting in front of a crowd. That was before the woman and her abandoned briefcase which she refused to admit was hers and all the trouble that would land on him as a result of his trying to do a good thing.