I was the teen building 13' cannons in my backyard and mixing up thermite from manufacturing tailings.

I was assembling banks of electrostatic capacitors I'd assembled from 2-liter bottles in milk crates in my basement, charging them up with a giant CRT television with it's screen plastered with aluminum foil, and seeing how much voltage I could store on my own body as I sat atop a DIY throne made of Styrofoam and lit up light bulbs just by holding them in my hands.

Tesladownunder was right up my alley.