German “Iron Man” fanatic invents laser weapon like Tony Stark’s (VIDEO)
Robert Downey Jr. poses by a life-size Iron Man model during a press conference on his latest movie Iron Man, in Tokyo, on Sept. 3, 2008.
Perhaps the "Iron Man" franchise should have come with a warning — "Don't try this at home, folks."
Patrick Priebe, a German lab technician who watches the film "Iron Man" and its "sequel, Iron Man 2" — starring Robert Downey Jr. — every week, has built a hand-held laser, or "repulsor-beam weapon," like that invented by Tony Stark, the film's main character.
He shared news of the invention via YouTube, and Hacked Gadgets pointed us to it:
Is it dangerous? you bet — in the U.S., the maximum strength for consumer laser pointers is typically five milliwatts; Priebe’s handheld laser is 1,000 milliwatts, "enough to instantly blind anyone not wearing special safety glasses," PopSci reports.
Without going into detail, Priebe's device runs on lithium-ion batteries and while beam "can’t blow guerrilla soldiers off their feet like his comic-book hero’s could," it is great for popping balloons across the room, cutting plastic or a piece of raw chicken … and so on.