Stupid Ray™

He was alone in his small basement workshop. On the wall in front of him were shelves full of electronic components. The shelves to his right hosted his measuring devices. His desk was a mess with cables, PCBs and other stuff lying all other the place.

He was pretty nerdy and had always been interested in everything science related, especially electronics. On the other hand he had not much of a social skill. Interacting with other people always felt weird to him. This was also the reason for him to study electronics and become an electronic engineer. Contact to other people would be very limited and he could do what he had a real passion for: Design electrical components. After university he started at a fortune 500 company. If asked, all his coworkers would say he is a quite guy who was rarely noticed by anyone.

In the middle of his desk was laying one of his side projects. It partially looked like a cordless screwdriver, which it had been in its previous life. Now it had a completely different task. The drill chuck, the motor and most of the interior had been removed and replaced with new parts. The interior was now a mix of different PCBs, connected with cables, and a mysterious, small, metallic case with some cables coming out and connecting to one of the PCBs. The most significant change was the front where, instead of the drill chuck, there was now some kind of metal tube that stick out of the front. The hole that was left by the missing drill chuck was covered by an ordinary plastic piece. The clueless observer would still think this might be some kind of cordless screwdriver but would certainly be able to recognize it as some kind of homemade conversion.

With slightly shaky hand he finished the last solder joint. He had worked for fife years on this project. During his master thesis he found the math that was the foundation for this device. He had not published his discovery and kept his invention secret. Also this was all still theoretical and he first had to prove his theory was right. His heart racing, his thoughts in the future thinking about all the possibilities, he closed the case and tightened the last screws.

“Done, time for testing...”