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Magic 8-Ball Booby Trapped with Camera Flash

Feb 16, 2011 05:00 PM

Take $1.35 of thrift store bric-à-brac, toss in a few spare parts from your electronics drawer and mix it all up with an earnest desire to alienate your loved ones forevermore and what do you get? A booby-trapped Magic 8-Ball, that's what!

Hacker arfink explains, "My idea was to make a Magic 8-Ball which would blind an unsuspecting victim with the camera flash. I had an old Honeywell thermostat at home which had a mercury tilt switch inside, and after cutting open the 8 ball and removing the blue goo tube I stuffed the camera flash guts and the tilt switch inside:

A person holding a black Magic 8-Ball toy next to a laptop keyboard.

I also added a 'safety switch' to the ball, which can be toggled without opening the ball and which disables the charging circuit, making it so the ball can't recharge for another flash. I had a dead Commodore 64 that I had been gradually pillaging for parts and I stole the power switch and installed it facing out the bottom next to the flash tube and reflector."

Open electronic device with visible circuitry and batteries, held in hand near a laptop.

More here.

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