It is a laser trip wire setup that me and two other guys put together for a month long class.
It uses a TILaunchPad, some random hardware, then mostly Python code.
When the laser is tripped a picture is taken with a webcam, then a picture message is sent to your phone.
This is it set up on a desk. The laser is in the mint tin and the black box is plugged into the computer.

Not much to it, but here are the insides.

and here is a link to our awful blog
Definitely not as cool as a portable but was a good time.
Time to finally use that Verge screen I bought probably around 2 years ago =/.