Did you know that Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe?It’s also incredibly explosive and surprising easy to make. As a teenager this didn’t bother me, as I sat in my kitchen with a car battery on one side and a jar of bubbling hydrogen on the other. I’ve always been entranced by science. So, it was frustrating growing up in a fairly average household of artists and musicians with no tools lying around, no science books, no DIY projects to help out on! Don’t get me wrong I enjoyed playing music, experimenting with art and collaborating with my siblings to invent games. Life is full of many interesting journeys, each of which teach us new and exciting skills - if it was up to me, I’d explore them all. As for science and technology, I had to improvise. I disassembled remote control cars - swapping them out with bigger motors. In one afternoon I scavenged electronics from our broken microwave to make an electromagnet. My love for learning and interest for how things worked got me through the fact that 80% of these projects ended as a pile of scrap metal in the bottom of my bin.If the goal is to learn, failure is the best form of success! I loved to learn, driven by my desire to gain new skills, understand the world a little better and know that next time I won’t make the same mistakes. Learning from my mistakes was great… until I accidentally built a bomb in my dad’s kitchen. Hydrogen (H2O – O) is surprisingly simple to make, with a 9V battery and a cup of salty water I was generating bubbles of the explosive gas at home. The intention was to capture enough to propel a DIY rocket in my back garden, but the quantities were too low. So, I scaled up: used a spare car battery, bought an electrode mesh and plugged it in. Car batteries and hydrogen aren’t a great mix. The hydrogen is very sensitive to high temperatures, and the car batteries generate enough power to melt steel. So, when I see smoke coming from the ‘hydrogen generator’ I know it’s time to call the project.My projects took a more risk averse approach after that. I worked on software optimisation and AI, remote control planes, and building a remote PC for fluid simulation. Each of which taught me knew skills and methods which I built on from the projects before. At university I realised the potential of collaborating with others to come up with solutions greater than anything I could ever achieve on my own. Involved in multiple engineering clubs, I thrived in the environment of likeminded individuals passionate for science, technology and solving problems.