This Engineer Built A Real Retractable Lightsaber

A YouTuber, James Hobson, a.k.a The Hacksmith, which has over eight million subscribers and 700 million views on the channel, is an engineer who runs with his team of innovative people that take fictional ideas from movies, video games, and comics and then convert them to reality, making prototypes based on the source material. The Hacksmith and his team of innovative people had inspired many youth looking to pursue careers in the field of STEM, which included chemistry, mathematical science, computer information technology science, engineering, geoscience, physics, and astronomy.

James Hobson might as well be called the next Tony Stark, a smart engineer who earned a bachelor's degree in mechanical systems engineering at Conestoga College while working as a full time engineer and product developer with his friend Ian Hillier, who is now his business partner. They have worked on engineer projects such as converting Honda into an electric car. Hobson started his YouTube channel a year after YouTube was launched in 2006. The first thing that he did on there was create pneumatic cylinders to make an exoskeleton that allowed him to curl 170 pounds. The video went viral within three days, and he was also invited to appear on the Discovery Channel. Tired and overworked at his corporate job, Hobson quit and focused his attention 100 percent on his YouTube channel and brought in six figures a year just by building superhero props on YouTube.

The Hacksmith’s previous works have been very popular. The engineer created the replica weapons, gadgets, and spy tools from James Bond movies and a variety of comic book movies. These include Wolverine’s retractable claws from the X-Men franchise, Captain America’s shield, Thor’s Mjolnir hammer, and a full metal Iron Man gauntlet from the Marvel Cinematic Universe that could cut through steel. On top of that, he also created the thermal replica helmet from Predator. After gaining all this popularity, James Hobson got on Hollywood's radar, and he was sent to New Zealand in 2017 to test out a motion capture suits to the highly anticipated blockbuster sequel War for the Planet of the Apes. He also created a working neuralyzer prop for 2019’s Men In Black International promo campaign.

It was only a matter of time before he went about crafting the Jedi weapons from the galaxy far, far away. He got to crafting these weapons by simply constructing it from metal tubing from the protosaber, the early incarnation of the laser sword, then the lightsaber proper and, of course, as we know, he recently replicated Kylo Ren’s three-pronged saber from the last Star Wars trilogy. They are technically not the lightsaber but are still able to be retracted when they are not in use. This also makes the lightsaber sound.

Now, The Hacksmith has tried to solve the biggest problem that no one ever had conquered or attempted. His experiment was to create the world's first retractable plasma-based lightsaber replica just like in the Star Wars films.

Check out the video below on creating the lightsaber with plasma beam that burns at 4,000 degrees:

The Hacksmith said, “Even with all of our new equipment and capabilities, we’re still bound by the laws of thermodynamics.” What this means is that the protosaber is powered by a portable pack that separates from the hilt. With the principal of laminar flow, the lightsaber will be able to turn a highly concentrated stream of propane gas into a plasma beam which burns at 4,000 degrees Fahrenheit heat that is capable of cutting through steel like butter. The part that more is fascinating is that Hacksmith is able to turn the color of the lightsaber’s plasma to different hues by using salts, calcium chloride, and boric acid. Quite a feat indeed!

Written By Pat Kusnadi

Syndicated From Culture Slate