A clip depicting a boy operating a small excavator garnered more than one million likes in three days after it was posted on video-sharing platform Douyin.

The footage was uploaded online on June 18 by the boy's father, Zheng Luoxi, 27, who runs a stone factory in Luqiao district, Taizhou, East China's Zhejiang province.

According to Zheng, his son has more than one and a half years of driving experience even though he is not even 3 years old.

Many online viewers commented were amazed at how proficient the boy is at operating the excavator.

"He can be exempt from any entrance examination to the Lanxiang Vocational School," joked one netizen. Lanxiang Vocational School, which is in East China's Shandong province, is nationally renowned for its excavator training.

After the video went viral, the number of followers for Zheng's Douyin account ballooned from 41,000 to 168,000.

The excavator in the video was made by Zheng, who developed a strong interest in the machinery after seeing them at a construction site when he was a middle school student.

He later put his dream of making an excavator on hold to focus on his business, which he took over from his father after graduating from high school.

In 2019, Zheng transformed his old house in the countryside into a studio and began exploring how to craft an excavator from scratch. A year later, Zheng rolled out his first prototype of an excavator suitable for children. The prototype was able to travel at about 10 km/h.

This success inspired him to upgrade the excavator further by introducing slight modifications and replacing the track with rubber wheels.

Zheng said the popularity of the video has served as an encouragement for him to continue to pursue his dream. On June 21, his patent application for the crawler excavator he developed for children was approved by authorities.