OWK- Master of Defense

I have always loved Star Wars, beyond the genius of the story itself, the depth and complexity of its characters, the unexpected turns in their journeys; to me, Star wars has been always been more about mind blowing props, magnificent costumes and more specifically, epic Lightsabers.
I don’t know when exactly my passion for building helmets and lightsabers started, I can only remember that my first one was the Obi Wan Kenobi telescopic blade; from then I devoted myself to endless hours of helmet and lightsabers making videos to be able to build my own. I must say, lightsabers in particularly proved to be challenging, it was not only about its design, dimensions, materials, looks, feel, weight, etc but the most difficult part was dealing with small electric components and its construction-welding; for this, I had to do a lot more research than I was used to, I had to be very precise and a lot more patient than usual; but in true Yoda-style: “"Patience you must have, my young Padawan,"
From a young age, I started by ripping apart plastic lightsabers, removing internal electric components-circuits from them and trying to rebuild this into my own creations. Everything was going well, but I wanted more, I wanted to customise my own lightsaber, I wanted different colours, a different sound, different light sequence and different actions activated by different moves and buttons, etc. However, after several attempts I did not get the results that I wanted, something was wrong but I couldn’t quite figure out how to do this effectively at the time, so I thought that by getting my hands on a more professional lightsaber would give me the missing knowledge to build my own; however, for many years I tried to persuade mum to get me one from the authorised retailer. Although they were a bit more reasonable than a proper customised lightsaber, they were still very expensive and after she had seen how I dissected my previous lightsabers, she never gave in.
A few years passed, but I never gave up, so I decided to have another attempt to make my own realistic-customised handmade lightsaber once I had developed some electrical skills at school. The hilt (fancy name for handle) was an empty 89 sabre OWK4 model, the version of Obi Wan Kenobi's Lightsaber from New Hope (Under the alias of Ben Kenobi at this time) with a more rugged look, instead of the clean polished look/ version of the prequel films - This is my favourite design of all times. For the first time, I managed to solder the whole internal system myself effectively. I also used for this construction 3D printed parts and foam for the chassis to securely hold the board, the speaker, buttons and wires, to prevent a short circuiting. This is how my first ever customised lightsaber was born.
However, it wasn’t as easy as it sounds; when I finally put the hilt together for the first time and switched it on, nothing happened! I was so confused, I went again through every single process, testing all components and it turned out that everything was ok, but I left the batteries in whilst soldering, which damaged the board; a true feeling of devastation crept in. However, I had to solve this, I was so close to have my own customised lightsaber. I was so lucky that I had some money saved from by barbering and found a mega offer on circuit boards; as a result, I purchased another board, but I had to wait for the delivery and unsolder all my hard work.
After 2 weeks, the board arrived; this time I ensured no batteries were plugged in. All components were soldered, the Sound fonts had to be installed onto the board through a micro SD to work with the click of a button, smooth swing, clash effects, sound font selection/programmed and the gesture controls, so they can be activated also by thrusting forward= on and twisting= off onto the lights for the blade. The lightsabers use pixel light strips, which are programmed and controlled individually by the board, and so for that scroll effect like the blade is coming out of the saber to match up with the sound. The material for the blade was difficult to choose; it needed to be resistant but still allowing as much light through; therefore I chose polycarbonate, because it would offer rigidity to the blade, slight flexibility, opaque but see through enough to diffuse the light so each individual pixels cannot be seen to offer a more realistic look, and it is a recyclable material. I also used some jet connectors to light the blade up and secured it using screws.
This piece really tested myself, but I am so happy that I managed to build and program not only my first customised Lightsaber at a fraction of the retail price. But I gained so much knowledge, developed skills and it taught me to persevere. You might not get it at first, but if you keep working and trying it will happen for you.