Former MythBuster Grant Imahara, along with former MythBuster special guest Allen Pan, recently took a Marvel challenge to create real versions of Iron Man's gauntlet and Captain America's shield.
The result is a series of videos done in partnership with Marvel to promote the release of Captain America: Civil War, which features Iron Man going up against Captain America in battle.
"Captain America's shield and Iron Man's gauntlet," Imahara says in the video. "Two engineers on a mission to take superhero tech out of the film world and into reality."
And that's exactly what the two engineers did. Imahara created a real-world version of Iron Man's gauntlet that's not just a replica, but the real deal: it even has a working laser. Pan followed suit by building Captain America's shield, complete with "ricochet action."
For those who want to know how they did it, here are the first two videos of the series outlining the process of how they turned fictional movie technology into real functional items.
Pan built the shield on top of a drone. The shield also requires a special glove that has an accelerometer that allows a transmitter to map his arm's movements to the drone attached to the shield. This allows him to send the shield out and away from his body.
Imahara used a 3D printer to develop pieces for Iron Man's gauntlet, which he attached a laser to. Imahara also pointed out that he got the highest-powered laser that he "could legally buy." He follows that statement with a strongly worded "do not try this at home" message, which is probably good advice to follow.
The two engineers then tested out their superhero technology in a third video. Although their real-world tech doesn't look as cool as what Marvel fans will see in Captain America: Civil War, Imahara and Pan still manage to achieve the goals they had in mind for their tech. They also ended up having a lot of fun playing around with the gauntlet and shield, and in the end, they called for a tie between Captain America and Iron Man, refusing to take sides.
Captain America: Civil War opens in theaters on May 6.
