Słomkowski's technical musings

Playing with software, hardware and touching the sky with a paraglider.

Projects of my teenage years


During my teen years, I had a lot of time to play with electronics and computers. I used to have a website under various, now defunct addresses: flylab.ovh.org, flylab.glt.pl, flylab.cba.pl, slomkowski.glt.pl. In winter 2024, I was feeling a little bit nostalgic, so I went down memory lane and looked through my backups. The projects and the articles themselves were created mainly during my gimnazjum years. Some of the articles were previously translated into English, while others I translated recently. I republished them here mainly for sentimental reasons. I kept the original publication dates.

Simple one-stage coilgun

Simple one-stage coilgun

An experimental Gauss gun I built during my teenage years that uses a magnetic field generated by the coil to accelerate the projectile.

Quick and dirty build of an SP6SYV antenna tuner

Quick and dirty build of an SP6SYV antenna tuner

When the opportunity to get into amateur radio arrived, I built a variant of the Z-match antenna tuner, known in Poland as the SP6SYV antenna tuner.

High voltage generator 2.0

High voltage generator 2.0

High voltage generator made of two ignition coils connected in antiparallel configuration.

Small three-wheel robot controlled by IR TV remote controller

Small three-wheel robot controlled by IR TV remote controller

A three-wheel robot controlled by an IR TV remote controller and optionally, an RS-232 port. The motors are taken from old 5.25" floppy drives.

Analog signal recorder for serial port

Analog signal recorder for serial port

Single-channel signal recorder based on analog-to-digital converter TLC549, connected to the computer using serial port (RS-232).

Pyrotechnic detonator made from an old military field phone

Pyrotechnic detonator made from an old military field phone

Pyrotechnic detonator made of an old military field phone for safe launching rockets and fireworks.