/cgl/ - Cosplay & EGL

Question about prop making. I followed this tutorial to make a Gambol Shroud prop, and it came out really really nicely. I'm super happy with it, but I just came up with this idea that I think would make it even better.

In the show, it's able to transform from blade to gun automatically. I can do it with my prop, but it takes a while to manually move the pieces. I was thinking that maybe I could use motors/servos to automate the process.

My plan-I can put an arduino inside the handle to control all the electronics. The blade folds in half when it goes into gun mode, this could probably be done with a single servo. The bottom half of the blade ROTATES and MOVES back and forth on the handle, which is where I'm having issues. I can solve the moving problem if I replace the free standing spool that's currently there with a motor, and put gear tracks on the blade. So the motor can ride the length of the blade to move it back and forth. However, I don't think this would rotate the blade. Rotation would be really easy with a servo, but I cant possibly think of how I can combine those two.

Any ideas on how I could do that? Is it too much work/not worth it?