A decade ago, Li Zhimin, a farmer from Jiaozhou in Qingdao, would never have guessed that the machine he pieced together with his own hands would one day represent Chinese ingenuity on the global stage.

　　Jiaozhou is one of the largest chili trading market in China, and Li grew up there. In 2009, he saw that manual stem cutting was becoming a serious bottleneck as trade volumes surged. That sparked an idea: build a mechanical alternative. "I thought of it like an electric shaver" he recalls. "A rotating drum with small holes – the stems poke through, and a blade cuts them off." That seemingly simple hunch, however, would send the 42-years-old man on a turbulent journey that reshaped his life.

　　Six and a Half Years in a Mud Walled Workshop

　　Working alone in six rented, dirt floored rooms, surrounded by scrap metal and scavenged parts, Li persevered for six and a half years. With no blueprints to follow and no existing models to copy, his"simple"idea met with failure after failure. Five years in, he began to question whether it would ever work. The repeated setbacks not only sapped his confidence – they also drained his savings and left him with 5 million yuan in debt.