Make a Lightsaber

This post is sponsored by Duracell Ultra Batteries.

With all the hype around the new Star Wars movie, my kids have been eyeing off the lightsabers in the shops for a while now. But I’m a party pooper, so I said no to buying an expensive, noisy, plastic lightsaber. Of course when my eight year old suggested we could make our own… well now that sounds like a fun project!

Morgan and I talked a lot about how we might make a lightsaber.

We wondered what could work for the light, what we could use for the tube, and how we’d make it ‘look cool’. We did some googling, we asked Dad for some technical advice and we gathered some supplies to try out our ideas.
We weren’t sure if our lightsabers would work, even as we were building them, but they turned out great so we thought we’d share them with you.

How to make a lightsaber!

To make your own lightsaber you’ll need:

• A laminator
• Two A4 laminator pouches
• A roll of coloured cellophane
• Scissors
• Clear tape
• A super bright torch/flashlight (see below for details)
• Batteries
• Our free printable lightsaber handles (see below for details)
• Markers or coloured pencils.

It’s important to choose the brightest torch/flashlight you can get, so that it lights up the entire length of the lightsaber.
We found small, inexpensive, torches, with five super bright LED lights and a button on the end. They were the perfect size and brightness.

We also needed batteries that could last the distance.

I knew these lightsabers were going to see lots of use so I wanted a battery that could power all that play. We used Duracell Ultra (Duracell’s long lasting AA batteries) and they’ve even been able to outlast my wild kids!

Here’s how to put your lightsaber together:

Morgan and I came up with all kinds of wild ideas for how to make a coloured plastic tube for the lightsabers, most of which were either too expensive, or too impossible!
In the end we decided to try laminating some coloured cellophane and it worked great!
Start by cutting a piece of cellophane to the size of two laminator pouches placed end to end. Then carefully place a pouch over the cellophane at one end, and at the other, so they overlap a little in the middle.

The cellophane is slippery so it’s a bit tricky, but you don’t need to be perfect. As long as the laminator pouches cover the cellophane and overlap a little around the edges and by a good centimetre in the middle, you can trim off any wonky bits later.

Carefully feed your overlapped pouches into the laminator and you’ll get one long piece of coloured plastic coming out the other side!

Roll the laminated sheet into a tube the same size as your torch and tape it together, then tape the tube to the torch.

The next challenge we encountered was the light escaping out the open end of the tube, but we fixed that with a very simple solution… Scrunch up a bit of left over cellophane and pop it into the open end of the tube to ‘seal’ it, then put some tape over the end.

Now you need to make your lightsaber look super cool by adding a custom designed handle!

You can design your own using a sheet of paper and some markers, or download the free printable lightsaber handles that Morgan and I designed and colour them in.

You can download our free printable lightsaber handles here.

This printable is an A4 sized pdf file. If you are printing on US ‘letter sized’ paper be sure to select ‘fit’ or ‘shrink to fit’ from your printer options.
Please remember that the printables at picklebums.com are for personal use only, you may not sell, share, or link directly to these files.

Once you’ve finished your handle design, wrap it around the torch and secure it with some tape, and you are ready for Jedi training!

Morgan and I were thrilled with how well our homemade lightsabers turned out. It was so great to see my boy come up with his own ideas, do some research, test out his theories and revise ideas that didn’t work.

Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker have been battling on and off at my house for the past few weeks and our homemade lightsabers are still going strong.

Duracell is an official partner of Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

Purchase two packs of Duracell batteries for a free popcorn when you see Star Wars: The Force Awakens in cinemas – check the website or Duracell’s facebook page for more information.

Win a Duracell Star Wars Prize Pack

If you’d like to power your kids play and deck them out in all the latest Star Wars gear, I have six fabulous Duracell Powering Play prize packs to give away!

This competition is now closed.
Congratulations to Laura who won first prize, and to Cherie, Fiona, Kate, Jenni-Mae and Karen who also won prizes

One winner will receive a $500 Toys R’ Us voucher and a pack of Duracell batteries and five runners-up will each receive a $100 Toys R’ Us voucher and a pack of Durcaell batteries.

To enter simply leave a comment below answering this question –

Would your lightsaber power the light or the dark side of the force? Why?

The most creative and fun answer will win.

You must be an Australian resident to enter, and entries close at midday on Wednesday December 16th 2015. See full terms and conditions below.

Competition Terms and Conditions.
You must be an Australian resident and be 18 + years of age to enter.
You must provide a valid email address and entries are limited to one per household.
Entries close Wednesday December 16th 2015 at midday Australian EDST.
Entries will be judged on merit and creativity.
One winner will receive $500 Toys R’ Us voucher and a pack of Duracell batteries and five runners-up will each receive a $100 Toys R’ Us voucher and a pack of Durcaell batteries. Prizes are not guaranteed to arrive before Christmas.
Winners will be contacted by email and announced on this post by Wednesday December 23 2015.
The winner must contact me within 5 days or the prize will be re-drawn.
The winner agrees to have their contact details passed on to the appropriate PR company or brand representative who will send out/organise the prizes directly.

This post is co-ordinated by The Remarkables Group