I've held one of these - they're neat. A similar phenomenon is called 'keraunautography" - the pattern of burn-lines left by a lightning bolt on whatever it struck.

Now if you want a third-grade static-electricity project, go visit [washuu.net] - though I'd really not recommend it until fourth or fifth grade.

"Our" wallets, "We'll" give this a try.

Dear god, Gawker, please don't start appropriating the hive mind-like writing stance of Engadget, Joystiq, et al. -Please-.

Make your very own, very temporary and very much less impressive one at home. Damn you for getting my hopes up :(

@Kia: nothin new. consumerist always does that.

oh and the proper spelling is lightning. lightening is something completely unrelated: [dictionary.reference.com]

the video is awesome.

I have one of these on my desk :)

where can i buy one of these?

My dad and I used to make these for christmas presents. Unfortunately, to generate the really spectacular "beam trees" you need to use a linear accelerator. My dad had one at UCSD in the physics depaartment. we would bombard acrylic blocks with 1GEV (one billin electron volts) for 60 seconds and discharge them to ground using a center punch. Spectacular visual display

@WolfDV:
Buy the Panels and other acrylic "lightning" paperweights here:
[teslamania.com]

So....technically that acrylic panel is just acting as a HUGE capacitor ;)

@JoOngle: Yes - when charged, a piece of Plexiglas behaves exactly like a capacitor with invisible plates. And charged specimens can hold a surprisingly large amount of electrical energy. For example, a 12" x 12" x 1" piece of Plexiglas, when fully charged, can hold about 1 kilojoule of energy - about 3X the maximum energy used in a medical defibrillator. The internal capacitor "plate" (i.e., the electron space charge layer that becomes the Lichtenberg Figure when discharged) can be at a potential of about 2.2 million volts versus the positively charged outer surfaces. You can read about all of the gory technical details here: [capturedlightning]