Practical Armor Applications

The 501st doesn't really appear to have any practical applications if you pass one of us walking down the street. We are a costuming group, and while we donate a lot of money to charity, we pretty much have the appearance of geeks dressing up.

Today, I came across one of the most interesting applications that I've seen for Storm Trooper armor - Anti-Squid armor. Yep, someone's actually using the armor for something besides blaster protection. Squid, which are predators, capture their prey by grabbing them with their tentacles and using a beaked mouth to rip their food apart. I guess if you're studying them, you also run into that risk, and having a hard shell is probably helpful.

According to his website, Scott Cassell has put the armor to good use - he's been attacked by a group of squid, and the armor's protected him. He's wearing a modified suit of FX armor, minus the helmet, obviously. There's a documentary out on DVD, where he talks about the suit of the armor.

There's some video of him in the armor here.