An anonymous contributor wrote in about making laser shutters using hard disk drive rotary voice-coil actuators. The contributor’s lab has made a couple of these which are controlled via an Arduino, at a much lower cost than shutters from Thorlabs or similar.
Another paper of a similar vein, by W. Bowden, R. Hill, G. Baird, and P. Gill creates a shutter from a Piezoelectric Cantilever Actuator. ArXiV Version here.