Inventor lives out hero dreams by making web-shooters, lightsabers in bedroom

Lightsabers and web-shooters have long been in the realms of science fiction, but 25-year-old inventor Jacob Uy has turned these ideas into reality on a workbench in his bedroom.

- Osmond Chia

With a 3D printer, light-emitting diode (LED) strips, some thread and a vivid imagination, the Singaporean has built fully working replicas of iconic movie gadgets: a Spider-Man-style web-shooter that launches a retractable cord, and a lightsaber that extends and retracts.

Mr Uy's bedroom desk – cluttered with cables, cutters, soldering tools and dismantled parts from earlier prototypes – is where the magic has been taking shape over the last six years.

He is now working on the sixth iteration of the lightsaber prototype, a project that started three years ago.

With each upgrade, the lightsaber prototypes have become sturdier, more compact and retract faster to more closely resemble its look and feel in the films.

He uses a magician's cane – a narrow spring-steel strip that folds into a lightsaber hilt and extends out to full length within three seconds using a small motor. The cane is lined with ultra-bright teal LED strips, which fold and extend with the retracting cane to create the look of Cal Kestis' lightsaber from the Star Wars video games.