Adafruit Forum member JoshuaKane writes:

I wanted to share with everyone a project I worked on for a recent sci-fi/comic convention. I have always been a fan of fantasy, sci-fi and comics. A few months ago I started working on an Orbital Drop Shock Trooper (ODST) costume and weapon.

I wanted to make the sword something that would literally make folks stop in their tracks and take notice at a convention. For this I turned to the Arduino Microprocessor and some of the accessories developed at Adafruit.

The full idea is to give the impression of a pulsing energy sword. The perfect item to light this sword are the NeoPixel strips (60 LEDs per meter). The complete package is a sword that would light up when you turned it on, and play a sound indicating that it was switched on.…think Star Wars light saber. Once lit the NeoPixels would pulse from blue to purple to red, and back to blue. What weapon would be complete without sounds? To give the sword a more realistic look and sound we used the ADXL345 to be able to detect motion, this would trigger a sound event via the VS1053 breakout.

To complete the package I used 2x liPo 2600mAh batteries hooked in parallel through a UBEC to give a constant and clean 5v for the LED’s and controller.

The costume is designed by Sean Bradley, who also molded the sword parts out of PET Plastic and Resin. DragonCon photos were provided by Brian Humphrey.

Sword body pieces fresh out of the vacuform machine. These will be painted on the inside.

Arduino Micro, ADXL345 accelerometer and VS1053 audio breakout board are concealed within the cast resin handle.

All the pieces coming together. The bubble wrap is presumably there as an LED diffuser. Clever!

Completed costumes, ready to wow onlookers at DragonCon!