the steps to becoming batman are simple acquire fancy gadgets wear a nifty costume that's it you
don't even need super powers so as far as i'm concerned these are all legitimate batman's
or batman you get the point because besides laws against vigilantes there's really nothing stopping
someone from putting on a batman costume and fighting crime so in theory anyone can be batman
no i mean bruce wayne's just a really smart dude with a bunch of money who can afford to build
batman gadgets now i don't have a bunch of money but i have a high school education and i can build
stuff kinda so to prove that anyone can be batman i'm going to become robin sleek nobody wants to be
robin come on i'm going to be batman all right so here's what i got the first thing on my list was
to eat breakfast but i already did that so the next thing on my list was to buy a batman suit
perfect so while i wait for that to come in the mail i gotta build some batman gadgets but
the biggest question was what gadgets do i build batman has an extensive catalogue of gizmos in his
tool belt and there's no way a non-fiction version of batman can hold them all so personally any time
i think of batman besides the batmobile the two main gadgets that come to mind are of course the
grapple hook and my personal favorite the batarang and the batarang is by far the coolest adaptation
of the throwing star that i've ever seen so before i got started on the grappling hook i wanted to
build some batarangs first i bought some rubber toy batarangs so i could perfectly trace the
design on a piece of sheet metal and cut it out which raises a pretty big problem cutting metal
with this precision is really difficult without a laser cutter i don't have a laser cutter because
they're really expensive so i gotta figure out how to cut this design out with bulky power tools now
i was able to chop away a little at a time until i could separate the three batarangs and once i
could work with one at a time i managed to get the bulk of the cutting done so i made it as far
as i could with the grinder and i think i gotta move on to the dremel normally a dremel tool is
perfect for small detailed cuts like this but unfortunately this metal was a little too thick
for it and i wasn't really getting anywhere this is pathetic i was gonna have to find another way
but luckily i had one more trick up my sleeve this was perfect not only was i able to get all the
details i needed but i was able to sharpen the edges and points too alright these are looking
sick they are razor sharp but before i try these out i want to throw a coat of paint on and while
i wait for this to dry i'm going to work on that grappling hook i didn't think i would have much
luck finding something that would act as a hook lying around the shop so i decided to get this
grappling hook off amazon i wasn't sure how i felt about trusting a 30 grappling hook with
my life but i didn't really have another option i quickly realized that my hand-eye coordination was
absolutely horrendous ah yeah well it took me 87 tries to get a successful throw and once i landed
a good one i ran into another issue i can't even wait on this thing this rope is horrible okay so
this rope is so thin i can't grab onto it and when i wrap it around my hand it literally feels like
it's gonna rip my hand off so that's not gonna work now i know this just seems like a small bump
in the road but this really wasn't good because as much as i'd like to believe i'm becoming batman
just to prove a point the truth is there's another reason i have to become batman a darker reason
a more batman ear reason you see the city i know is home is teetering on the brink
of total disaster just barely bracing ourselves for an inevitable crime wave hello and welcome
dark times are coming for the town jake lives in with reports of jaywalking littering and misuse
of turn signals authorities say they need to focus their efforts elsewhere but who will save our city
from these petty crimes jake carlini jake carlini jake paulini jake carlini could be the hero this
city needs so yeah you heard the man my city's in trouble and it's up to me to save it and so far my
grappling hook was an utter failure but luckily these batarangs are dry and ready to try out
these things came out sick and they were perfectly balanced i gotta find something to throw these at
now it wouldn't be a good idea to throw them at the wall but i had something else in mind so let's
just say some psychotic clown enthusiast starts terrorizing my town we'll call him the jokester
i find myself in a tussle with this guy i can't be blindly whipping batarangs around i'm gonna have
to be a sharpshooter with these things i started by standing about 10 feet away from the target and
i couldn't get anything to stick but once i got the throwing technique down i was more consistent
so i missed but it went right into the wood man these things are the real deal
the more i practice the better i got like elmer einstein always said
practice makes good once i got a bunch of consecutive solid shots it was time
to test my distance throwing from 15 feet away yes and then 20 feet away
all right i think i've practiced enough it's time for a harder challenge
a melon the perfect target i took my position locked my eyes on the target and
yes an absolute perfect shot i'm not gonna hit this anymore because i'm gonna eat it but i have
one more challenge for myself an apple if i could hit this small of a target i was confident that
i could hit anything what totally sliced right through it i was not expecting that at all what i
did it i was one step closer to becoming batman i was going to be the hero my city needed after all
but i still wasn't ready there was so much work left to do batman is extremely limited without
his grappling hook so i had to figure it out cause after all if you can't walk up walls then
you're not even batman so after thinking about it for several minutes i had an idea if i attach
a winch kind of like this to my body i won't have to hold the rope so i went out and bought
the smallest winch i could find so i'm thinking i'll figure out a way to attach this thing to my
arm so i would have to make some sort of gauntlet and i've never really built this type of thing
before so of course the first thing i came up with was ridiculous and definitely wouldn't
work this was gonna take some real imagination i have an idea i have no idea if it's gonna work but
i gotta try the idea is to take this pvc pipe and saw it down the middle creating a perfect
gauntlet for my arm to fit in but as you can see my elbow doesn't really want to go in so
we're going to cut my elbow off what no what oh we're going to cut this off guess that makes
more sense so i fixed that then i just needed to attach some arm straps bolt the winch on there
and test it straight so it passed the stress test and it's on my arm pretty securely i will say it's
really uncomfortable and i don't think my shoulder is going to be able to handle my whole body weight
i wasn't 100 confident in this design but i really wasn't sure on how to fix it yet so for now i'm
going to add some power and i know nothing about electricity or wiring so i was a little
intimidated but after messing around for a while i figured out where all the wires go connected and
yo okay so now that i had power i had to see what it could do
all right so i know that it works and it looks ridiculously awesome but i just really didn't
trust this wall walking technique okay ow ow okay there was no way if i tried to walk up a
wall with this setup i would definitely dislocate my shoulder i was embarrassed i was really banking
on this design working out maybe i was just never meant to be batman batman batman batman batman
i arrived home that evening to find a suspicious package outside my door which turned out to be
not suspicious at all because it was the batman suit that i ordered for a second i thought maybe
i didn't need the gadgets maybe i could be a hero without them so i suited up and hit the town to
see if i could help i got out there and realized that things were much worse than i thought the
city's water supply it tastes bad there was litter everywhere ridiculous i was harassed by some kids
and worst of all someone stole my car he got away i need my gadgets i can't work like this part of
me felt like i didn't deserve to wear this suit like i wasn't worthy of being batman besides the
batarangs which are wicked cool i couldn't even get my batman gadgets to work properly that was no
batman i was a disappointment and just when i was about to quit and take the easy route of becoming
robin i remembered why i was doing this to begin with i had to prove a point that anyone could
be batman prove a point that's you that's you talking i thought you were trying to save the town
nay i only said that so you guys would think i was cool the truth is i just wanted cool batman gear
so bad that i made up this whole story to justify building it but jake what about that detailed
crime graph i made that myself in microsoft pain but jake what about the news segments
the gauntlet attached to the backpack to stop my arm from coming forward by using a remote
in my gauntlet hand i was able to control the winch to lower myself and pull myself back up
tying the gauntlet to the backpack was definitely the right idea but this isn't really designed to
carry that much weight so i bought a harness this is actually meant for climbing another
issue is that this cable is not very good for what i'm trying to do because this cable was
made of metal it was really stiff plus i couldn't get my grappling hook on there so
we got this other rope that's way better so i created a strap to hold the winch in the
backpack to the harness then i replaced the cable and it was finally ready there's only
one thing left to do walk up a wall i had the perfect wall in mind and it was over 20 feet tall
but before i did that i had to be sure that this was safe first i took down a couple
rotting trees which is way too much fun then i was ready for the first official climb test
so now that we know we can climb a tree can i walk up a wall no i'm not sure why but for
some reason this was way more intimidating than the tree but that wasn't gonna stop me
i was confident in my creation this actually works
i was getting more comfortable and having a ton of fun but this climb was only 10
feet high i had yet to face the real challenge i had yet to become batman
jake you're about to climb some serious wall dude yeah now this was intense i was experiencing a
whole new level of fear i was face to face with this massive wall and it was up to me to conquer
it and prove myself as batman i started by taking some baby steps forward with a 40 pound battery
strapped to my back in a 30 pound grappling machine strapped to my arm i was trusting my
build to carry almost 300 pounds up this 20-foot wall the fear was leaving my body and the blood
of a hero was coursing through me yeah i did it dude i am way up here this is insane i became
batman and more importantly i told you so anyone could be batman that's all i got