Father Creates Samus Aran's Arm Cannon For Son [Video]

With Halloween right around the corner, there's going to be all sorts of costumes that pop up, designed from some of the most famous faces in the tech, and video game markets. While the face of Samus Aran, the main character from the Metroid titles, may be hidden behind a mask for the majority of games, she is still a recognizable character. And, with plenty of reboots on Nintendo's GameCube system, along with a recent release for the Nintendo Wii, there's no doubt that a few kids (and maybe some adults) will want to dress up as the power-suit wearing heroine.

Joseph DeRose is an 11-year-old (and a huge Metroid fan) who, this Halloween, decided that he wanted to dress up like Samus Aran. Not wanting to just find some kind of "run-of-the-mill" costume in a department store, DeRose's father decided to help him out, and they set forth on creating a costume. While starting with the suit itself, which will be designed from the Metroid Prime-era, they wanted to begin with the cannon. They finished up the design recently, and the arm cannon features an Arduino microcontroller inside, which controls the LED lights inside, as well as the speaker. The result is an arm cannon that can shoot Plasma Beam, Power Beam, and charged shots. Even better, though, is the fact that DeRose needs to "log-in" to use the weapon of choice at any given time.

Unfortunately, as of the time of this writing, the rest of the suit is still incomplete. However, considering the work done on the arm cannon should give plenty of hope for the rest of the costume. Hopefully, when it's finished, the DeRose father and son will show it off, and not just in their neighborhood. Check out the video below to see the cannon, as well as some of the construction process.

[via Joystiq]