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You might not remember Ryan Palser by name, but you'll surely recall the good gent's homemade Fallout 3  plasma rifle. He has since stepped his game up to bigger and badder video game weapon replicas, and has just completed the construction of the first of his forthcoming army of  Portal  laser turrets. Thankfully, Ryan has been sporting enough to build the older version of these human eviscerators (not the upgraded  Portal 2  turrets, phew!), giving us at least a small chance of survival -- provided we have the right gear, of course. See the laser-equipped, GLaDOS-approved, 38-inch tall turret next to its maker after the break, or hit up the source link for some gorgeous photos of its construction. Kotaku ,  Make Ryan Palser (Flickr)

We don't do a whole lot of reporting on ancient weaponry here, because, well, it's a little dated -- but throw in an Arduino and a servo, and you've got our attention. Take, for example, this miniaturized trebuchet. Constructed from a series of click-in-place pieces known as Blocklets, the little launcher is basically a standalone slingshot. With the addition of the aforementioned components, however, it becomes a motorized annoyance for anyone and anything that stands in its way. The folks behind the tiny trebuchet tested its capabilities against a sculpture similarly built from Blocklets, but we prefer the challenge of a moving target. Unfortunately, we'll have to wait to get all medieval with this thing, as Blockets haven't quite made it out of the funding stage yet. Blocklets

See that flaming wreckage in the picture above? A laser did that, mounted on board a second vessel similarly bobbing on top of the ocean last week. Yes, even though the United States Navy told us that legitimate seafaring death rays might take another decade to materialize, basic weaponized lasers are ready today, as the 15-kilowatt gun attached to the USS Paul Foster happily demonstrates. Of course, as you'll see in the video after the break, a beam of such minimal power takes a moment to burn through even an unshielded engine and ignite the fuel therein -- once we get some 100+ kilowatt lasers up in there, we shouldn't have such problems. Test Moves Navy a Step Closer to Lasers for Ship Self-Defense By Geoff S. Fein Office of Naval Research ARLINGTON, Va. - Marking a milestone for the Navy, the Office of Naval Research and its industry partner on April 6 successfully tested a solid-state, high-energy laser (HEL) from a surface ship, which disabled a small ta...