Mikey:
Glad you don't hate me
I built my first diode at about age 12 (I'm closer to 30 than I am to 20 now!). "Building" involved buying a diode for $75 from the gorilla man at Active Surplus on Queen St. in Toronto. I remember it well. Built an enclosure and direct drove that thing with 2x AA batteries for years. It must have had the lens built right into the diode module, because I never had to worry about anything like housings, lenses, or hell - even a driver! I don't think laser pointers existed yet - or if they did, you couldn't buy them in stores.
I digress. To be honest with you, and to save you a lot of money and frustration, you can't do this without the ability to purchase online. The lack of housing (aixiz module) and lens are what will sink you more surely than anything else. When I said you could scavenge a housing from another pointer, that was a big "long shot". A dollar store pointer probably wouldn't have guts that you could take apart and reuse, and if it did, the plastic lens would be toasted by a more powerful diode. And even worse - buying a full out burner drive just to extract the diode, may be ultra expensive if you're purchasing it in a retail store. However, the most terminal hurdle you're going to face, is the lack of any good locally available safety glasses. I've never seen those anywhere in the *real* world.
I think you're out of luck. You might want to try finding a website that has all the stuff you'd need in one location, and offer to mail them cash. It's super sketchy, and far more dangerous that just ordering properly. However, if your parents endorse and support your desire to build a laser, but they just don't want to do online shopping, then it might be the only approach that would work.
