Trying to work out why particular things happen the way they do, I would design experiments and try to make them. This started before I was 10 (I'd been given Richard's Topical Encyclopedia for my 8th birthday and had read its 15 volumes from cover to cover) but got into full swing when I got to high school and could squirrel away bits and pieces of info, ideas and even "stuff". A reasonable memory for detail helped.

If you check out BS: Rocket Science??? you'll see where it got me as well as how others got into it as well.

Cheers, Rowan