Gadget Lab tech creates novel game consoles

SALEM -- Take an idea, like changing the look of a game console by using a popular action figure like a Star Wars storm trooper or Michelangelo from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and that's what Leo Alvarez is up to.

He works at the Gadget Lab and his technical expertise started with Xbox repairs. He's been with Lenny Jenkins at the Gadget Lab since it opened two years ago.

"I still do repairs," Alvarez said, meaning any and all repairs on computers, cell phones or electronics in need of micro-soldering.

"That's what it's all about here," he said of the Gadget Lab.

He started with console repairs 10 years ago and then he got a little creative and began modifying them.

"Paint jobs, custom lights, plexiglass windows with etched designs," he said. "I sold those for quite a long time."

He explained, "My whole thing is making what I think people want to see in consoles."

That means making them more decorative.

"The idea is to turn established, popular action figures into consoles," he said pointing to two working prototypes in the lab.

"I'm getting a hold of the companies that make them to design new consoles.

"More or less of what I'm doing is changing the look of your Xbox."

He spoke with Microsoft about the Storm Trooper console, "because they own the rights to Xbox," he said, adding the next stop will be speaking to Jakks Pacific, which owns the rights to the Ninja Turtles, noting people sell them on eBay and he would repurpose them.

"I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place to get both companies to sit down and talk to each other," he said.

Xboxes run anywhere from $250 and up and Alvarez said the consoles are wired to do the same job, play hundreds of games and would run between $800 and $1,000, as a premium console made to order.

"They already have custom controllers," he said, "and I'm taking it to the next step, furthering the consoles."

It's a dream for now.

"I would build and sell them myself," he said, explaining he put the idea on YouTube last September but expects a sizable burst when the website Gamingvid on Facebook releases his new video on March 15.

The current YouTube video details everything regarding the consoles.

The Gamingvid site has attracted around 983,000 followers.

Alvarez said, "It will be on many people's feeds and will be redirected to my La-Modz.com website where they can go to see all my work and older consoles. "Basically it will be a gallery with information about my coming work. People can follow me. I have a whole separate console, different from Xbox, a whole different console (that can play many games).

"There are five different prototypes for a whole different console. That's going to be wicked."

La-Modz is on Facebook and the La-Modz.com site will go up concurrently when the Gamingvid site broadcasts his new video.

Alvarez can be reached through his La-Modz Facebook page or by calling 330-550-5817. lshields@salemnews.net