So I wasnt really inspired by the last film prop build, but I have an idea for another one which would be better, infinitely more useable, and just plain cool.
In real life, the nuclear football only contains folders and preconceived attack plans in the event of a nuclear attack. However, in the movies, the nuclear briefcase contains a computer, screen, fingerprint and iris recognition elements and a whole lot more.
What would be cool would be for Ben, Felix and Karen to build a prop nuclear briefcase with a computer that can actually be used, and populate it with greeblie found objects to represent things like the iris scanner etc.
These found objects could come from old electronics, thrift stores etc and I saw how much fun Karen seemed to have in the salvage episode so this would be a great one to get her more involved. An RPi could be used to make the old electronics do stuff so Felix could concentrate on that and Ben could build the actual computer part, finally creating graphic overlays to keep everything hidden and make it look more "authentic".
I have several RPis laying around waiting for projects and probably enough greeblie misc electronics to make something myself, but I would love to see Bens take on it.
My thoughts would be to have a normal intel pc with wifi as the main computer you would actually use. You could take a trackpad from an old laptop to use as the mouse and obviously a tft screen in the lid. You could scavenge the motorised lens from an old digital camera (one that is completely flat until the camera is turned on) and mount it as the iris scanner. You could even use the cameras lcd screen as a secondary display and show targetting graphics or a random DEFCON status indicator and mount it in the lid next to the main screen. Add some joystick style toggle switches (the ones you flick open to access the switch), some random scavenged leds or other indicators and maybe a power switch which could be the Presidents ID card inserted into a slot which closes a circuit thus powering on the whole briefcase. All the greeblies could be controlled by a RPi. The keyboard could be one of those almost flat industrial metal keyboards the you sometimes see on ATM machines. I see them on ebay all the time.
Not only would this be a cool prop, it would be awesome to take to LAN parties as a better alternative to a gaming laptop!