REAL Spider-Man Nanotech Suit - Self Expanding Iron Spider No Way Home

This is how I made the Iron Spider suit that expands onto your body with a push of a button. It all started after I got a ton of you asking me to build stuff from the new Spider-Man movie. Talking web shooters, wall climbers, the Doc Ock arms, and the Iron Spider suit. All great ideas, so I did a poll on Instagram asking which I should do first, and it looks like today I'm making the Nanotech Iron Spider suit. So if you do end up liking this, just remember there's a button for that, and subscribe too. Also definitely let me know what I should make next, whether it's one of those other Spider-Man gadgets, or anything else. And if you see anything else you like, definitely give it a thumbs up, that way I know it's popular and it really does help me out. So here's the Iron Spider suit in action. Basically, Tony built the suit for Peter, Iron Man tech fused with Spider-Man powers. The suit expands to almost magically appear on Peter, with this awesome looking Nanotech just sort of crawls out across his body. The suit's also packed with a ton of other features too, the most prominent being these four expandable giant spider legs that pop out of his back insane. So my goals for this project, build a Spider-Man suit that appears on the user's body with a push of a button. Build the Iron Spider legs that pop out of my back, again just with a push of a button. And I want to keep this simple, in the most elegant way possible. Basically, I want it to be clever, like something that you probably didn't think of. Like I don't want another super complex, expandable mechanism with a million moving parts, it's impossible to understand and build. If you do want that really complex project, please check out my last video, I built Thor's hammer that actually shoots lightning bolts like 10 feet. You hold it up and you're just shooting lightning. It's insane and definitely one of my favorite videos I've ever made, so please go check it out. And if you don't always have time for these long videos, we've also got a new Clips channel as well. Now, I've made more expandable stuff than anyone probably should. I'm talking shields, swords, shoes, I even made an expanding briefcase Iron Man suit, which sucked to make by the way. Super complicated, and is the reason why I'm trying to avoid building something with a million moving parts. The difference though from that Iron Man suit is this spider suit has to go on automatically, like we can't pick it up and put it on. And we also don't have a briefcase to store it in, it already has to be on our body somehow, completely hidden. Oh, it's gonna be way harder. The good news is that the Spider Man suit is skin tight, so total volume is actually much less than the Iron Man suit, which should make it a lot easier to conceal. We just need some mechanism that can shapeshift really well. So I started with some research and found a couple materials that could have slight potential. First, this stuff right here. It's a type of metal called gallium, and it's got a very low melting point, which means we can actually touch it when it's liquid. So maybe there's a way to have it flow over our entire body, and then like cool down and harden it. Like maybe we could have like a reservoir of gallium on our back, and then a press of a button would have it flows out, expands all over, get that full metal suit. That would be crazy. The trick though is to get gallium to behave the way we want. I thought maybe magnets could help, but unfortunately gallium's not magnetic, and I have exactly zero other ideas about how to make a crazy metal gallium expanding suit. But I actually did find another magnetic fluid that could have some potential. It's called ferrofluid, basically iron filings in like this oil solution. And this stuff definitely reaction magnets. So if we could somehow magnetize our entire body, you actually could have this stuff in a reservoir, just like set it free, and then it would like crawl over your skin and completely cover you. That'd be so cool. To be honest though, I think that would work a little bit better for like a venom suit. Like this already reminds me of venom a lot actually. And again, it's not super practical, but maybe we can do something with that in the future. But yeah, I don't think expandable liquid suits are going to be super doable for this project. It just kind of sucks, because this one thing of gallium was about 40 bucks, and I got 50 of them. So we're a little in the hole right now. So this video is sponsored by Mobile Premier League. Basically we could win real money by playing a bunch of different games on the MPL app. The games are super casual, like pool, basketball, cards, puzzles, and it's all skill based too. So if you win, you get real money that you can withdraw via PayPal or direct bank transfer. And you also fund your account that way too. You can do multiplayer, you can do 1v1, and who you play is based all on your skill level. Check this out. Like there's a bunch of different games. Hop into this pool real quick. Let's do this. Three, two, one. Boom. Easy. All right. Just got to line it up. Oh, yep. Just got to get the angles, get the angles right. It's all about the angles. Boom. Oh my God. I am really messing this up. You know what? Let's go for 10. Let's go for the 10. Oh. And if you get above a certain score, you get cash. It's available on iOS and Android. Just check out that link below and you can get $5 free just by downloading the app. And up to 20 bucks in referral bonuses. So if you think about it, the body is really just five tubes stuck together. That's all you are. Five tubes. Two arms, two legs, and a torso. So I think we just make five expandable tubes that cover each section. So I went down a few more rabbit holes. I came across these inflatable robots that are super simple and look pretty cool. Basically by putting pressurized air through a tube that's like tucked into itself, it expands outward from the center, kind of like a vine. See if this actually works. Basically it's all rolled inside itself. Theory, if we just put a little air in. All right. What if we rolled it the other way though? So instead of expanding from the inside, it expanded from the outside to cover our arms. So we just put the arm through the center, have it like a ring at the bottom, and then whoop. That could work, but we still need to make it look like the suit because this, this is all wrinkly and it needs to stretch like a Spider-Man suit. Wait, I think I got an idea. Okay, so just pretend like the suit arm is these party blowers right here. Put a little air into it. Expands and contracts, you know? Yeah, this could work. Put your arm through. This is a good idea. This is, uh... Upon further review, we have come to the conclusion that in fact, it does not work. All right, I don't think any of these expandable mechanisms are going to work quite the way we want. I don't know what this is, but it's not nanotech, you know? It's not even close. Like, someone would walk in right now, they'd think I'm ******* insane. Yup, we need another strategy. So a mistake that I often make is trying to optimize a bad idea. So I scrapped everything and went back to the drawing board. Another thing that can help is bouncing ideas off someone else, which is why we're actually looking to hire someone to help out with these projects. We've been working with awesome volunteers for some of these builds, learning a lot, and it's been going really well. But I think we're ready to take it to that next level. So if any of you guys are interested, we've got a link below. Main criteria, be in LA, and just having a lot of experience building stuff. We want creative, like outside-the-box thinking, well-rounded craftsmen, artistic. Basically, the more experience you have building stuff like what we already build on the channel, the better. Also, if you're an editor, we're looking for those as well. Alright, so I took a fresh look at the criteria. Now remember, we want to make a suit that appears on our body seemingly out of nowhere. Now yes, ideally the suit would be full metal, have all these amazing iron spider features. But for now, all we want the suit to do is appear on our body. So what if the suit was already on our body? At least partly. Basically, what if the suit was like invisible, and then appeared when we need it? That seems much better. So with that mentality, I did some more research. Instead of expanding on command, I was looking for ways to change appearance. Enter the chameleon. Their skin actually has a crystalline structure that reflects, or actually constructively interferes with certain colors or wavelengths of light, depending on the tiny, tiny spacing in between their skin crystals. Now if you don't know, visible light is a spectrum of waves from about 400 to 700 nanometers. That's tiny. For reference, a human hair is about 200 times wider than these wavelengths. So it's so impressive that a chameleon can actually change its skin crystals on this small of a scale. So as it turns out, you can actually get like synthetic liquid crystals like this that expand and contract on the nanometer scale to change colors like a chameleon. These crystals can be triggered with electricity, pH change, heat, and more. It's actually the same color-changing tech that's in mood rings and some beer cans. So maybe we could take these crystals and put them on a Spider-Man suit to change color into a Spider-Man pattern. So that's where this stuff comes in. It's called a PDLC film. Basically we've got a layer of those crystals in between two pieces of film. So if we electrify these pieces of film, we put electricity through the crystals, the crystals align, letting light pass through, and it becomes transparent. So now we could just take a regular Spider-Man suit and put it underneath. Then that film would go from one solid color to transparent, revealing the Spider-Man suit all with the push of a button. You could even animate it so like different parts would change at different rates so it would literally look like it's like crawling down your arm, just like the movie. But there's obviously still problems. This stuff has a lot of glare to it as well, which kind of distracts from the Spidey suit underneath. Also because the material is plastic, it only bends in one direction. So making an entire suit out of it would be very tough to move around in. All right, give me a second. Maybe we could spray it with some sort of clear matte finish to get rid of the reflectiveness. Then we could cut it into sections and create like a flexible pattern that bends in the correct way. Ooh, actually, yeah, this material only works well at a distance. So if you try and put it up close to anything, the thing underneath will show right through. Ah, I hate that guy. But he is right. He seems pretty cool too. We are going to need another way of attaching these crystals. So I was able to find some thermochromic liquid crystals that are activated by heat, which if we combine with a fabric binder, we can apply directly to the Spider-Man suit. That'll get rid of the problematic plastic film, so at the right temperature, the nanocrystals will all move and align in such a way that the Spider-Man pattern will be revealed. The trick now though is going to be activating the crystals on command because there's no button to press anymore. We need to heat these up in the correct way. So to make the suit look a little bit more discreet when we're wearing it around, start with a suit that's somewhere in the middle between a skin-tight suit and a regular shirt. Then let's hit it with that black nanocrystal paint. Then let's put some athletic shorts over it. Boom, we're already making progress. Then to disguise it even more, and add just a little expandable mechanism because I'm addicted and can't help myself, I cut off the feet and rolled them up my leg. Now we look pretty normal. But we need a way for them to automatically slide down again. So I thought about this for a while, maybe use some sort of like scissor jack mechanism to like push everything down my leg. But I thought about it and we're just trying to get these things to fall down so we can just use gravity. Duh. So I attached a few small weights to the bottom of the leg, less than a pound, so not enough that you even notice, but enough to pull them down over my legs when they're pulled up really high over my knee. Then to keep them in place we can rig up a small electromagnet. Super simple and almost no way they can fail. Also modified the shorts to like snap off and roll up so there's no trace of any clothing and it completes the look. But we still gotta figure out how to tactically heat up the entire suit to trigger the nanocrystal pigment. This activation temperature can't be too low either. We can't be walking around and accidentally reveal our secret identity if it gets a bit too hot. That ain't cool. We also can't set the temperature too high either because I'm just gonna cook myself. I think like 100 plus degrees should be like a sweet spot. Now actually generating heat is very simple. All we need to do, just short circuit a battery or combustion reaction. In fact, I've accidentally generated heat many times. Again, the trick though is going to be generating this heat evenly along the surface of the suit without cooking myself. So I just started shorting circuits at different currents and voltages to see what worked the best. This was a three day process of basically strapping ovens to my body. See which one burned me the least, but also heated up the material fastest. Yeah, it was a weird three days. Basically the longer the wire or higher resistance, the longer it takes to heat up. Also, the more turns of wire you use, the more complicated things get and the harder it is to attach to the suit. But if you don't use enough wire close enough together, the suit doesn't heat up enough and you end up with like sort of like a zebra Spider-Man. And then all the rest of the heat goes into me instead of the suit. So we need to take all of the heat being generated by the wires and evenly disperse it throughout the surface. And also away from me so I don't bake like a potato. Now if I remember correctly, there are three ways to transfer heat. Conduction, which is through physical touch. Convection, which is like air currents when you have like a hot coffee or something. The heat rises away. Or heat radiation, which works the same way as light. To conduct heat the best, we would need like a dense material. That way it'll pull heat from the wire and evenly disperse it throughout the suit. Convection, it's kind of pointless for this application, but we can radiate the heat outward if we have a reflective material behind the wire to direct the heat outward into the suit and away from my body. So after trying a bunch of materials like thermal paste, some of these space blankets, I landed on aluminum tape. This stuff is perfect because it both conducts heat really well and also radiates it outward away from me. So then I created the world's warmest jacket. Using wire to generate the heat, then using aluminum tape to conduct it and radiate it evenly. And also built it using sections of wire. Both for flexibility so I could actually move around and for better control. This part is super cool. Or I guess super hot. But because of this, we can selectively control which part gets hot and how fast we heat it. So if we design a circuit using a microcontroller and some relays, we can have one part turn on first and then the next part and the next part. That way we'll get that flowing effect again like they have in the movies. Maybe we want the arms to turn on first, then the body. Get that sweeping effect. So I designed and built the circuit. Also if you guys ever need to design any custom circuits for projects, definitely check out one of our channel partners, Ultium. It's a sweet PCB design software that's super easy to use. You can collaborate with other people and it's just full of helpful tools to help you build circuits. So we've covered the arms, legs, and torso, but what about the hands, feet, and mask? Well for the feet, I think we should be able to use the same color changing technique with some regular shoes. So I grabbed some pretty lightweight Converse-style sneakers that should be great for you know spidey activities. Gave them a paint job, then I retrofitted them with the same heating tech we used before and finally added that special nanocrystal color pigment on top. So now they just look like regular black shoes. I did originally want to use some Air Force Ones because that's what I've seen Spider-Man actually wear in like the comics and movies, but they're just a bit too clunky to actually like work with the suit and look like they blend in. Like in the movies, they don't care. They'll just get the animation team to literally delete his shoes when the suit goes on. Like look at that! It's like they're not even thinking about people who are actually going to try and make this for real. Selfish! Anyways, I already painted them, so I'm actually going to give these away. I did a custom paint job and then used the same nanocrystal paint on these as I did the suit, but these shoes will turn at about 90 degrees, so you can literally do it by putting your hand on it and it'll turn. So if you want to win, just like and subscribe of course, then follow me on Instagram and like my latest picture. Then I'll announce the giveaway in the next video. Speaking of that, big congrats to Nick Harper for winning our last video's giveaway. Enjoy your new iPad. Now, to make this suit as cool as possible, I think we gotta take a crack at those iron spider arms. Now this one stumped me for a while. Obviously I want to make super strong metal expandable arms, but the goal of this suit is to be super simple and have everything expandable. Now to do that, I think we can actually use those vine robots we were playing with earlier. So to make them, I first built a foam spider leg mold, wrapped some lightweight nylon around it, then gave it a gold paint job to make it look more like the movie. Now we just need a way to deploy it. And for that, I found this super small, powerful air inflator and bought four of them. So now if we roll the fabric up inside of itself, it expands in that really cool vine growing way. Now we just need three more. Then I 3D modeled and printed a device to hold everything in place on my back. It's got space to hold each of the four legs and I wired all the air pumps together to trigger with a push of a button. So I put everything together and added some pretty cool gold spider detailing just to finish it off. I went with the gold theme because his legs are gold in the movies. Now I was a little skeptical on how good this would actually look or if it would even work at all, but I actually think it came out pretty cool. Alright, final stretch, the hands and the mask. Like we could use some sort of inflatable mask thing like I used in my Iron Man helmet video, but it would just look too clunky. So I'm going to be honest, I've been putting off the hands and mask this whole video because I just don't know how to do it. Apparently Christian says he has a pretty good idea. How do we do the mask and gloves? Well, gloves are easy. Like you have to cover all of it. How do you do that? First, here. Do you have a knife? I don't. No, wait. Get rid of the problem. I thought you had a good idea. Yeah, I do. Mittens. Think about mittens. What, just expandable gloves? Yeah, dude. Oh my god. Oh, it's every ******* video. Dude, I hate that. This, this is the guy we're going to listen to for expandable gloves? He looks like a smuck. Whatever. How do we make the mask? Well, I have an idea. It won't, it won't work for you. You have what most women and most men want. Yes. And I don't. But I have one way where it's so useful. Make sure it's a nice fade. It's funny because this is not a first for you or me. This is pretty light work, honestly. We need to figure out how to activate it. Just a little bit. Oh! It's worse that you're making me do it myself. Yeah. It's sort of working. Dude, you look so cool. Do I actually look cool? Yeah, it looks sick. Oh! Yeah. Look at that. This is going to be like a sick montage or something. What if we just, I might do it a little. There's some super bad profanity I'm ahead of. Do not let it get cold in here. So glad we did this. See, who wouldn't want to work here? Enough tomfoolery, though. Let's test this out for real. Oh, my God. Hello, Peter. Well, there you have it, guys. I think this thing looks so cool. I really like the way it just flows along your body. Did get a little hot in there, I won't lie. But overall, not too bad. Once again, leave your ideas for what we should make next down below and let me know how you would have made this. Thank you guys for watching. I'll catch you in the next one. Peace.