The Radioactive Boy Scout is a comedy about the true story of David Hahn, a relentlessly optimistic 16-year-old boy from a broken home in suburban Michigan, who built a working nuclear reactor in his mother's backyard shed. He was driven largely by the naive hope that his great invention might somehow reunite his parents, creating the nuclear family he never had. In the early '90s, David's obsessive interest in self-taught science leads to too many household explosions. His father Ken encourages him to become a Boy Scout in hopes that the organization will channel the boy's energy. In the process of becoming an Eagle Scout, David pursues the Atomic Energy badge. Using his scientific know-how—along with the unwitting help of a pen pal at the Atomic Energy Commission—he goes on a radioactive scavenger hunt, building a nuclear reactor from everyday consumer products. While it's eventually shut down by the EPA as a Superfund site and buried a mile underground in Utah, David still succeeds in becoming an Eagle Scout.