Sure, this isn’t a handheld game console that can be taken anywhere, but this nuclear-powered device is most certainly be a conversation piece. Inventor Ian Charnas decided to create a “Nuclear Game Boy” of sorts that runs on a nuclear-powered battery that takes around two months to fully charge. Unfortunately, it is only good for approximately 1-hour of Tetris gaming even after all that time spent powering up.
For the technically inclined, this handheld game console utilizes tritium – a rare isotope of hydrogen that’s gaseous and mildly radioactive – as its source of nuclear fuel. Yes, this isotope gives off the famous radioactive glow, and to generate power, Charnas laid out a line of tritium vials and wrapped them in solar cells. Next, he sourced thin-film solid-state batteries that could hold the energy generated faster than it would dissipate. Lastly, he found a basic LED screen without a backlight to run the game.
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It turns out an actual Game Boy uses almost a million microwatts which is way too much. So I bought a bunch of cheap knockoffs from the Dollar Store and found one that only uses about 1,000 microwatts,” said Charnas.
