DIY Arc Reactor

My 15 year old daughter was invited to a surprise party with an Avengers Theme. She wasn't sure if others would dress up or not so 12 year old son and I came up with the perfect, understated costume - Tony Stark, wearing an Arc Reactor under normal clothes.

 Here's how we built the arc reactor...

Step 1: Create a circuit featuring power source (flattish 9 volt battery), blue light bulbs, and a swich.

It helps if you have clamps at the end of all the connecting wires. We recycled these from some other electronics kit/gadgets we had lying around.

Step 2: Squeeze the circuit bits into a large plastic lid. Attach with duct tape.

We placed the battery on the back (easy place to tape it) but this did make the whole assembly bulkier than was ideal.

Especially as my daughter didn't have a corresponding cavity in her chest.

I made a front cover from black card (copied loosely from the Tony Stark picture at the top). You could also use the more recent design.

The bulbs we had in the house weren't blue enough. We had one blue and one clear LED.

So we added some blue cellophane. I also ditched the black card and attached thick cardboard to both sides of the lid (having cut light holes with a scalpel).

Finally I attached some ribbon so the device could be worn around the neck (and under a black T-shirt).

This final picture is pretty lame. I should have taken a photo with the lights off. This was just a test shot. We ended up using a less-flat 9volt battery (although partly flat is good because full strength would probably shatter the LED bulbs) and a blacker T-shirt.

And the results?

Suffice to say, the birthday boy was surprised by his party! No-one else dressed up but at least my daughter didn't embarrass herself by wearing full Avengers gear!