This is my last Hackathon project of the Spring 2024 semester: Cap's Shield! For this Hackathon, I decided to make something that felt like a huge challenge for me. This project is inspired by the content creator JlaserVideo, where I came across a short video on TikTok that showed his shield gliding and bouncing off of walls without any damage. I will post the inspiration video at the end of this page. The shield is made of Fiberglass ring and Carbon Fiber. The fiberglass ring acts like a spring, allowing the shield to be able to bounce off of walls like the shield in the Captain America movies. Here is a short clip of how the fiberglass bounces.
The carbon fiber, when resin is applied, gives the inner part of the shield a strong and durable surface and is also lightweight and allows for it to glide. Here are some pictures of the process of me making it. I was not able to get pictures of the very beginning of the project, but the inspiration video portrays some of the steps that I did.
To paint the colors of the shield, I laser cut a stencil using acrylic. With the help of the acrylic, I was able to spray paint the design without hardly any trouble at all. In the pictures above you can see the type of resin that I used as well. It required mixing the two solutions for three minutes before applying to the surface. I applied the resin with a brush all over the surface of the carbon fiber in the front and in the back. I also wrapped the carbon fiber around the fiberglass ring to save time trying to figure out what material would be best to stretch it onto the ring. Wrapping it surprisingly worked pretty well! The resin definitely helped make it steadier and harder, although having the carbon fiber stretched onto the ring would have helped in more stability as well.
I was able to complete the assembly and design of this project in 4 hours as is in the Hackathon rules. However, it took about another day for it to be fully dry from the epoxy resin. After it was hard and dry, I tested it by bouncing it against the wall and it actually worked! The trick is to throw it extra hard towards the wall to make the bouncing back and forth effect! Below you will find the videos of my brother, a friend, and I testing it.
Although we messed up in the shooting of both videos, they both portray the ease of flying the shield has and the durability and bounciness, as it was able to bounce very nicely off of the walls at Hackberry.
Finally, here is the inspiration video of this project and a link to the full-length video of Jake, the creator of the channel JlaserVideo, making this shield.
DISCLAIMER: Due to the hardening of the carbon fiber with epoxy resin, the carbon fiber does cause splinters in the hand. I do plan on remaking this project again hopefully this summer to make a more polished and well-presented look that does not splinter the user's hands!
