June 13, 2014
This is the coolest thing we will see today. Not only does this Portal turret move, has light and sound, it can also track its victims with a camera.
Turrets are one of the main testing obstacles in the Portal games. Armed with almost unlimited ammunition and deadly accuracy, they will attempt to kill any test subjects on sight.
This intricate prop replica is designed to be as actuated as is possible, says its creator Yvo. Both the eye and the arms move and there is light for the eye and guns. And the best features is camera tracking.
The turret is controlled with an Arduino and a PC. The arduino handles the movement and the light. The software spots the subject on the camera, and the PC processes the video to decide where the turret needs to aim and provides the sounds for the turret.
"When no computer is present, the turret automatically switches to manual control. In this mode the turret can be controlled by a joystick, though there will be no sound." notes Yvo.
The whole turret is 3D printed and can be created with basic tools. It only requires a 3D printer and some electronics and programming skills.
Yvo designed the turret in one piece in Solidworks. Then mechanisms were added to make the guns and eye move. All in all the design took between 40 and 60 hours, according to Yvo.
For the turret Yvo used an UP Plus 3D printer that he won last year at the UP2013 contest. To print out parts for the turret you will need a 3D printer of at least 120mm x 120mm x 120mm (roughly 5"x5"x5"). All of these parts were printed on the UP! at 0.3mm layer thickness in about 20 hours, consuming about 500g of PLA filament.
To make it easy for those who want to make their own Portal Turret, Yvo has posted a complete assembly instructions on instructables. This isn't the first 3D printable Portal robot Yvo has made. Last year, we were delighted to see that Yvo built GlaDOS (Generic Lifeform and Disk Operating System), the most recognizable robots from Portal.
via: Hack a day
Posted in 3D Printing Applications
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