'Star Wars' science: Print your own crossguard lightsaber

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After making its debut in the trailer for Star Wars: The Force Awakens, the crossguard lightsaber has been quite the discussion topic online.

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Some wanted their own while others criticized its design, citing huge design flaws. (And others just couldn’t help having fun with the new design.)

If you fall into the first category — or your inner skeptic wants to see the design in action — you’re in luck: Instructions for 3D-printing the controversial lightsaber are now available.

“As Makers, we couldn’t help but try to find out by ourselves if this ‘crossguard’ design was a good configuration or not,” wrote the designers at le FabShop, a distributer of Makerbot 3D printers in France.

“Of course, the ‘darkness’ of the movie sequence and the lack of details on the weapon itself left a lot of place for imagination and interpretation.”

The designers added:

“A dozen of 3D printable lightsabers being already available for download on internet, we decided to make one that would be completely customizable. The modular system we invented makes hundreds of configurations possible. From Yoda’s lightsaber to Darth Maul’s.”

The files are available for download at Thingiverse, Makerbot’s design community.

The printer version is missing one very important element: Actual lasers. (So even if the design does prove impractical, it won’t cause you or your loved ones any harm.) Instead, the “lasers” are made of collapsible plastic.

“I have to admit that this 3D-printed version does reveal what will probably be a big design flaw for future toymakers who attempt to make it themselves—namely, that lightsaber toys have the tendency to collapse back on themselves in when acted upon by gravity, and here you’ve got three different blades all at perpendicular angles to deal with,” wrote Victoria McNally for The Mary Sue. “It’s gonna be a pain making sure all of them are open at once, is my point.”

Talk show host — and huge Star Wars fan — Stephen Colbert defended the new design on The Colbert Report last Monday, calling it "awesome" and "perfect":

"It’s a lightsaber with two mini-lightsabers on it! It’s a ménage-a-saber," Colbert said. “Sadly, there are some stuck-up, half-witted, scruffy-looking nerfherders out there who aren’t thrilled with the new Jedi weapon.”

“The metal hilts are just casings around the little beams to protect your hand,” he said, explaining to his audience that the two “mini” beams are from the same refracted light as the main beam. “Even if someone slices through the metal, they’re going to hit the beam right there. Any Padawan knows that.”

Are you, like Colbert, a defender of the new design? Or is it too early to pass judgement?

Whether we’re fans or not, here’s a final word from the folks at Discovery News on why we can’t have lightsabers:

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