Hacked Portal gun levitates a companion cube

Hack a Day has modified a Portal gun prop with magnets to create a levitating companion cube.

You've probably seen levitating magnet displays before, but this is undoubtedly the coolest application we've seen to date. Caleb Kraft of Hack a Day has taken apart a levitating globe and inserted the relevant parts into a Portal gun to make a companion cube "float".

Kraft removed the coil from the stand and the magnet from the globe, and installed them in a gun and cube, respectively. The trickiest part was making sure that the companion cube was weighted correctly; light enough to float, and heavy enough to maintain balance. He tested it using a cardboard cube first, before making the final cube out of foam.

The final product isn't actually one that you can carry around — Kraft couldn't hold it stable enough to maintain levitation — but just having it as a display object at home would be fantastic.

Read about Kraft's process here, and watch the gun in action in the video below.