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I Was A Twelve Year Old Nerd Building Solar Powered Radios and Pyramids
Tales of my mis-spent youth
When I was a kid, I liked tinkering with stuff. In grade school, I harvested and dried dandelion leaves to make my own tea, gathered pink firecracker sticks after Chinese New Year to make little houses, and turned old newspapers, baking soda, and perfume to make scented powder for my Mom.
I also collected the pint-sized milk cartons we got in grade school, and I stored them in my closet, collecting them so I could link them together to create a train, with wheels from old toilet paper rolls. Unfortunately for my dreams of building a railroad, my mother found the cartons and threw them out. I hadn’t cleaned them and they stunk.
Stinky milk was to feature in another experiment, years later.
As I got older, I expanded my horizons.
I loved to read science fiction and was intrigued by the idea of solar power. I found a book in the library with do-it-yourself solar projects. Some of them were more advanced or expensive than I could manage, as I was only 12 years old at the time.
However, I did build a small solar heater that would heat a cup of water for tea, a solar powered AM radio, and a solar powered water purifier. The last didn’t really work. I…
