<P> David Charles Hahn ( October 30 , 1976 -- September 27 , 2016 ) , sometimes called the Radioactive Boy Scout or the Nuclear Boy Scout , was an American who in 1994 , at age 17 , attempted to build a homemade breeder reactor . A scout in the Boy Scouts of America , Hahn conducted his experiments in secret in a backyard shed at his mother 's house in Commerce Township , Michigan . While his reactor never reached critical mass , Hahn attracted the attention of local police when he was stopped on another matter and they found material in his vehicle that troubled them , and he warned that it was radioactive . His mother 's property was cleaned up by the Environmental Protection Agency ten months later as a Superfund cleanup site . Hahn attained Eagle Scout rank shortly after his lab was dismantled . </P>
<P> David Charles Hahn ( October 30 , 1976 -- September 27 , 2016 ) , sometimes called the Radioactive Boy Scout or the Nuclear Boy Scout , was an American who in 1994 , at age 17 , attempted to build a homemade breeder reactor . A scout in the Boy Scouts of America , Hahn conducted his experiments in secret in a backyard shed at his mother 's house in Commerce Township , Michigan . While his reactor never reached critical mass , Hahn attracted the attention of local police when he was stopped on another matter and they found material in his vehicle that troubled them , and he warned that it was radioactive . His mother 's property was cleaned up by the Environmental Protection Agency ten months later as a Superfund cleanup site . Hahn attained Eagle Scout rank shortly after his lab was dismantled . </P>
the boy scout who built a nuclear reactor
the boy scout who built a nuclear reactor
David Charles Hahn
David Charles Hahn