Who the hell is Penguin?

Me. I grew up in Darwin, Australia. Now I'm at the University of Melbourne. I guess you're wondering how the hell I ever got into this 'hobby'.

Electronics was introduced to me by Mum when I was in grade 5 (1999) in the form of a birthday present: Dick Smith's Funway Kits. I wasn't interested, but during the holidays (yes they are very boring sometimes), I meddled with the very basic circuits introduced to me in the book. I quickly finished the book, and went onto Funway II. It introduced the concept of soldering and more perhaps, 'complicated' stuff.

After that, things began to escalate. From various information sources on the net, I eventually ended up designing my own projects. I explored different areas of the vast electronics field, and in 2004, found myself designing and building the mini fridge sized subwoofer in my room (its still here!). During 2004, I also began to 'specialise' in a variety of high voltage devices such as tesla coils, ignition coils, and so on. Alot of those projects are/will be on the site.

I took up work experience at PowerWater late 2004. They had a kind heart to provide me with heaps more stuff to play with. This developed my liking to radio communications, and soon after, in May 2005, I sat an amatuer radio exam and acquired an amateur license (callsign VK8NPF). During this time I also built a couple of designs of fm transmission equipment.

At the start of '05, an electronics VET course was made available to me, and although it didnt teach me much new stuff, the lecturers at CDU provided me with alot of useful materials, so thanks guys (especially Rob).

Around this time, I also got involved in photography. I very often cycled to weird 'no-go' places to take photos. Combining my electronics experience with this new hobby, I developed a high speed photography camera setup, which allowed me to freeze action down to a couple of microseconds. Theres a whole bunch of those pictures on the site here.

During the 2005 June/July and Dec/Jan holidays, I got bored and had a bit of fun with pulsed high energy discharge experiments, which I had never gone into depth before.

My first publicly launched project was 'The Balloon Project', in early 2006, involving the aerial suspension of a remote controlled camera using a weather balloon. It had taken a full month of the holidays to design and construct, but well worth the single photo it managed to capture (so stupid...).

Shortly after, I found out about lasers, was involved in them for quite a while. Shortly after, I used a laser for hologram creation.

At around the same time, a number of projects spiralled out from nowhere, such as the induction heater, and the LCD panel.

My hobby in photography was enforced when I saw what IR photography was capable of. I now have my own collection of IR photos here on the site.

My interests oscillate back and forth, and soon after emptying my stock of holographic film (for the holograms), I pursued a number of projects such as the all time favourite glass shattering experiment, and a high voltage marx generator. This was mid '06... so by the time you read this things will have slightly changed.

Who the hell is Nick?

Nick (last name not of importance here...) is the chemistry expert, and seeing as I don't know a thing about chemistry, he fills in that bit. He hasnt had much to do, however. Heres an extract from the distillation page...

Mr. Nick says: "Recently I have started mucking around with chemistry. Some may make explosives and try and blow up things but alas that is not chemistry. That is hooliganism. I prefer the more refined chemical processes, excepting hydrogen. I love hydrogen. Anyway I decided I would make a still. Yes, that’s what the equipment used to distill stuff is called, a still. Now some may say why don’t you just buy one, two reasons. One, it is very expensive (for my budget anyway). Two, when you make your own you can make it as big as you want."

~The Penguin's Lab mascots~

	Mr. Penguin is the trademark logo of Penguin's Lab. Once an innocent toy from McDonalds, Mr. Penguin has evolved into an important part of the experiments on this site. Throughout my experiments, he is subjected to quite alot of discomfort. In high voltage projects, a short stubby plastic object can often be useful in seeing how electrical arcs behave around it. Mr. Penguin has also seen some nasty fire incidents.
Mr. Giraffe makes his appearance in the fire and high speed photography photos. I found him about 10 years ago when I was still a tiny little kid. Some nasty kid had dumped him on the floor of a supermarket, so I promptly rescued him. Material wise, Mr. Giraffe is older than Mr. Penguin.
	Mr. Elephant played an important role in setting the scenes of the high speed photography pictures. I can't remember how I got him, but definately sure that I found him after the penguin and giraffe (maybe 8 or 9 years ago). Does not make an appearance anymore, solely because I can't find him. But hes probably under all my electronic junk somewhere.

Other Penguin's Lab details:

Er, what else could you possibly want to know? Email me: penguin7471 (at) gmail.com