Garden Shed Laboratory· Jul 2008
I developed a deep fascination with the natural sciences at an early age. When I was about 11, I started doing chemistry experiments at home, taught myself to build small electronic circuits and saved all my Christmas money for an 8 inch dobson refractor.
As the years went by, the chemistry experiments became more and more dangerous - too dangerous to be carried out in a 13-year-old's bedroom:
So, I moved my home lab into the garden shed of my grandparents:
It was there, over many summers, that I fell in love with organic and inorganic chemistry. Studying chemistry books from the public library got me started, but what really opened up this world to me was the internet. Around 2008, I started visiting forums like illumina-chemie.de and versuchschemie.de. On these sites, users posted syntheses of various interesting chemical compounds. I often had to synthesise the reagents myself because I didn't have any dangerous or expensive chemicals. Even the basic lab equipment was improvised. Here you can see the lengths to which I went in my DIY-lab:
Because I had spent all my pocket money on chemicals and laboratory glassware, I had to make my own laboratory stands, cooling baths and a magnetic stirrer. Of course, looking back on it now, the lab stand looks terribly unsafe - but it worked, and I was 13 years old and broke.
I spent many days in that garden shed lab, and until I was about 15, I synthesised a lot and was just happy, feeling like an alchemist. Some of these syntheses I put online, like this one.
As my interests changed, the shed became an electronics lab. There I built a small Tesla coil and experimented with voltages that were probably a bit too high. Still, I'm grateful that I was allowed and trusted to follow my interests - it made me the curious person I am today.
Here are some more pictures and videos I took around that time:
Chemiluminescence, DIY UV lamp providing energy
Manganese traffic light experiment:
Experimenting with plasma - HF-trafo as voltage source:
Testing a high voltage cascade built from old capacitors I bought from a garage sale. Also visible is a self made alternating current voltage source (built in a plastic lunch box..)
