How to Build: The TESLA Shield (Electro-Stun Riot Shield)

About this video

ZNA designs and builds an electrified shield with integrated stun gun capabilities, where the conductive front plate uses interleaved metal bars separated by insulation to create electrical arcing that shocks anything touching it. The build prioritizes safety by avoiding conductive fasteners that could shock the user, and demonstrates creative problem-solving through material selection (silicone adhesive for flexibility over brittle epoxy), long, precise fabrication work on the sheet-metal face, and custom attachment methods using paracord instead of metal hardware. The finished shield successfully arcs between electrodes and represents both an engineering challenge in isolation and a continuation of ZNA’s apocalypse-readiness workshop project series.

Key takeaways

• Planning for failure modes matters as much as the primary design—ZNA prioritized preventing self-injury through careful material and fastener choices throughout the build
• Material properties determine function; ZNA chose silicone adhesive for its flexibility to handle impacts rather than stronger but brittle alternatives, showing how ‘best’ depends on use case
• Creative constraint breeds innovation—the self-imposed challenge of building screw-free led to novel solutions like paracord knot attachment systems and careful electrode isolation
• Prototyping and testing assumptions early saves time; ZNA tested adhesive options before committing to the full build, preventing wasted effort downstream

Episode details: published May 21, 2017 · 1.8M views · 21:22 long. Summary written by Self Growth Videos from the episode itself. ZNA’s builds are his designs and experiments, covered here as commentary on the engineering ideas — Self Growth Videos does not publish build instructions, and his weapon-style projects should not be replicated.

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