Move over Peter Parker: Boston has its own super engineer turning science fiction into real life.
Jacob Uy just graduated from Olin College of Engineering in Needham, Massachusetts, where he spent the past four years inventing countless gadgets to pursue his mission to "become a hero."
That's the slogan of Herotech, the company Uy founded, where his projects have included a Spiderman web-shooter, an Iron Man JARVIS display and, most recently, a real-life retractable lightsaber.
"Anything is possible if you set your mind to it," Uy told NBC10 Boston. "These things that we see on the screen [are] all made possible through a basis of technology and engineering."
Uy uploaded his first video to Herotech's YouTube during his senior year of high school. He "made a goal" for himself to make a functioning web-shooter using his school's 3D printer, and his video documenting the process quickly gathered hundreds of thousands of views.
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"I was sitting there [realizing] that people really like this stuff, and really like science fiction coming to life," he said. "It's something that I love doing, and ever since then I've never looked back."
Olin's state-of-the-art engineering programs and project-based curriculum were the "world class" opportunity that Uy was looking for. In Needham, he's developed his Herotech projects and used them for class credit, with support from his peers and mentors.
"At the end of it, I've become a much better designer, engineer and inventor," he said.
His real lightsaber began as a final project at the school, not for Herotech. On a group project with other "Star Wars" fanatics, Uy built a prototype of a fully retractable LED lightsaber and recruited a research team, dubbed "Project Jedi," to create the final product.
Uy's design uniquely features an extendable and retractable blade, emerging from a to-scale hilt his team designed. Instead of a laser illuminating the sword's fake blade, the team opted for safer LED strips, which are wrapped around a magician's cane.
The 12-volt LED strip, the retractable cane and the motor and batteries were fitted into a heat-resistant, 3D-printed hilt, coming together to form a movie-accurate lightsaber. Olin says he isn't done with the project yet — he's working on speeding up the extension and retraction times, and building a new, metal hilt with different customizable casings.
Now an Olin graduate, Uy is planning to work on Herotech full time in his home country of Singapore. He hopes to inspire future engineers to keep learning and "become a hero" themselves.
"Engineering is as simple as putting things together," he said. "The more you look at it as something that's really accessible... more people will realize they can do a lot, and they can make a lot."
"Truly everything is possible," Uy added.
