@integra386: I dig your jig, awesome, you are really in for a professional lightsaber!
I used the same arm buddies method to link the LED's, mostly using household utensils instead of a jig, see my old thread here:
@chivotenkai: I like the video, good start for an ignition/retraction.
As for the accelerometer, I use a very easy scheme. Simply read out in every loop turn the raw values for acceleration and gyro:
accelgyro.getMotion6(&ax, &ay, &az, &gx, &gy, &gz);
Then I take the absolute value of the accelero values, take the largest one and using simple "if"statements compare it to some defined threshold.
if ((abs(ax) > 1000 or abs(ay) > 1000 or (az) > 1000)) {}