Bill Berner compares himself to Igor, the famed lab assistant to Dr. Frankenstein.
Both toil in windowless basement laboratories - though Berner's is in David Rittenhouse Laboratory, not Bavaria.
Berner, like Igor, concocts things that buzz, fizz and bang, although the professors he works with aren't insane; they're in Penn's Physics department.
In his 10th year as lab coordinator for the Physics department, Berner sets up - and often builds from scratch - the physical demonstrations professors use during their lectures.
The most popular demonstration, he said, is known as the "Monkey Hunter."
The device is used to represent a famous, albeit slightly off-color, physics problem, Berner said.
In the problem, a hunter is trying to shoot a monkey, and every time he shoots the gun, the monkey jumps away. The problem asks students to find where the hunter should shoot his gun, based on where the monkey jumps.
To demonstrate the problem, Berner built a device in which a blow gun shoots at plastic creatures. Professors use it to help students solve the problem.
The answer? Berner said he "can't reveal what happens unless you take the class," Physics 150.
Although Berner rarely interacts with Penn students - most professors operate the machines that Berner builds - he is a teacher at heart.
Berner holds a degree in physics from St. Joseph's University, and took the job at Penn after 25 years teaching high-school physics in Philadelphia.
He is still involved in the Philadelphia public school system. Every year before Christmas, during Penn's reading days, he puts on a two-hour physics demonstration for over a thousand high school students and teachers.
The most popular device among students who attend is one that demonstrates how rainbows and other light-related effects work. This display involves high-power lasers, Berner said, making the demonstration visually exciting.
Working with complicated machines and substances might seem dangerous, but Berner said the only dangers he faces come from his own willingness to put all he can, literally, into his demonstrations.
In one experiment he performs for an advanced high school science class that he teaches during the summer, Berner attaches a garage door spring to the ceiling, hangs from the spring and bounces up and down - a demonstration of oscillation.
Berner is the only physics lab coordinator at Penn, but he is not alone in what he does. He has counterparts in other science departments at Penn, as well as in physics departments at universities across the country.
A year ago, Berner participated in a "physics demonstration smackdown," he said.
At the invitation-only event, Berner said, physics teachers and faculty watched Berner and three other area lab coordinators "do our best stuff."
One memorable experiment, Berner said, was by a Rutgers University lab coordinator, and involved using a fire extinguisher to power a go-cart. The demonstrator somehow managed to blow up a piano in the process.
Helping "people understand the world they know better" is the ultimate goal, Berner said.
