Canadian engineer creates first retractable lightsaber

In the Star Wars universe, every aspiring Jedi undergrad has to complete a capstone project –design their own lightsaber – to attain master status. While he may lack most, if not all, Force powers, YouTube personality and Hacksmith Industries founder, James Hobson, has officially attained one of the graduation requirements.

Guinness World Records has officially recognized the Canadian engineer as the inventor of the world’s first retractable proto-lightsaber. Through his “Make it Real” <> series, Hobson is well known online for replicating a number of comic book and movie inspired gadgets, including Spiderman webcrawlers, an electromagnetic Captain America shield and Star Lord’s rocket pack, to name a few.

Hobson’s latest Star Wars-inspired invention, while bright and able to cut through most materials on contact, is technically a high power plasma torch with a control nozzle designed to look like a lightsaber hilt. Along with co-inventor, Bogdan Malynovskyy, the pair also fashioned a ‘back pack’ to house and regulate the saber’s energy source: oxygen and liquid propane gas. The result is an adjustable plasma beam, that extends and retracts, and can reach temperatures upwards of 2,204°C (4,000°F).
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