Given that the original freakout on the part of the English teacher was precipitated by the alarm going off while the clock was in his bag, I'm thinking it was battery-powered, not plugged in. Power cords are cheap, easily accessible wire that are not necessarily always carrying grid voltage. Although that picture certainly shows a plug, so who knows? I do wonder how the alarm went off - if that isn't just embellishment after the fact.

That said, I certainly fooled around with live power when I was his age. The house didn't burn down because we had a competent electrician install circuit breakers when we built it.

I have fond memories of learning to repair old black and white TV sets over the summer with my uncle at 14. We both managed to give ourselves some pretty hefty zaps. I still look back at the experience as one of the more fun times I had.

> Not that this actually matters but out of morbid curiosity - did he actually assemble a clock kit or did he simply disassemble a regular nightstand clock and put it into a little carry case?

Either way, he is 14. Like the saying goes, 'everything is a remix'.

> I don't think he actually made anything

That's pointless judgement for something that a 14 year old himself claims in this video as 'really easy... something small': https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mW4w0Y1OXE

At 14, all that matters is you are willing to learn, persevere, and have the courage to create something. (Actually, that's all that matters at any age of one's life.)

Looking at the photo it looks like he put a nightstand clock into a case.

I did this a lot as a kid -- removed broken stuff, poked around to fix it, glued it into a different box. It's one of the reasons I went into electrical engineering.

Yeah I was fortunate to have grown up when Heathkit had stores, they blew away Radio Shack. Could never afford anything in there but the catalogs were fun to read and store was amazing to browse.

It's a shame we have nothing like that today, electronics are just "magic" to people now that is made elsewhere.

Playing is an important part of learning.

When you're young is a great time to get shocked by 170v. Better than the rectified 340v from the caps in a power supply.