When I finally got around to playing Portal, I was a bit surprised at how much the Internet loved the companion cube. Sure, the cube is pretty great, but in my mind it pales in comparison to the turrets, the real scene-stealers of the game. In fact, they inspired a Veruca Salt-esque covetousness in me.
I wanted one.
Badly.
And, of course, it just wouldn’t be the same if it didn’t talk…
With the excitement of Portal 2 coming out, and in collaboration with Leigh Nunan, I finally was able to get my turret. Or, rather, to make it.
We’ve named her Trudi. Judging by her head-to-body ratio, Trudi’s a baby turret.
Features:
- Authentic game dialogue
- Motion detector, so it knows when you’re there and when you’ve left
- Pressure sensor, so it knows when you’ve picked it up
- Tilt sensor, so it knows when you’ve knocked it over
- LED light-up eye
- Exaggerated features for extra adorableness
I can barely hem a pair of pants, so I’m certainly not skilled enough to design and make a plush toy. Fortunately, I was introduced to Leigh Nunan; amongst other things, Leigh has created an incredible giant squid plushie that’s about twice as large as I am. Leigh both designed the turret pattern and sewed it together (which, to me, is essentially magic).
Here’s the Terminator-esque skeleton of the electronics and supporting framework.
The structure is made from heavy-gauge copper wire, a laser-cut platform, and hot glue. It may not be pretty, but it gets the job done. Internally, the electronics are housed in a plastic cup to keep them separate from the stuffing (thanks for the suggestion, Adam Smith!).
As much as we’d love to make you one or sell you a kit, the last time I suggested doing something like that I was very quickly disuaded. So, if anyone from Valve sees this and wants to talk about giving us permission, or at least turning a blind eye, please get in touch! Otherwise, sorry: you’ll have to make your own. Information about the electronics are provided below. The pattern is still a work-in-progress, but once Leigh’s ready I’ll post that here, too.
Electronics
The circuit is made of:
- Arduino to control it all
- Adafruit Wave Shield to play the sounds
- Passive Infrared sensor to detect motion
- Tilt ball switch to detect tipping
- Tiny tact switch to detect if it’s lifted
If I make more, I’ll use something like a BBB instead of an Arduino to keep costs down, but I used what I had handy.
The Passive Infrared sensor detects changes, so it can give a lot of false positives and false negatives; in the future I might try an IR rangefinder instead, but they come with their own problems.
I’m particularly proud of the “lift” sensor: it’s just a little button on the bottom of one of the legs. The weight of the plushie keeps it pressed when it’s standing up.
The LEDs are completely independent of the rest of the electronics. In a future version I’ll have them controlled by the Arduino, so I can fade them out when the plushie is knocked over.
If you’d like, you can download the code. I wrote a function to randomly play a sound file from a given directory, and then tied a directory to each event. It’s not quite as simple as “event triggers sound”: it only places a “tipped over” event if it’s also “lifted,” after being righted it plays an “activated” sound before resuming normal behaviour, etc. All it all, the interactivity works pretty well (if I say so myself).
What’s next?
There are, of course, many little improvements that both Leigh and I want to make to our respective parts of the design. There will be at least one more revision, because we both want to have one to keep, so we’ll have a chance to incorporate things we’ve learned from this first version.
As mentioned above, I’d like to have the LEDs controlled by the Arduino, so that they can fade out when the turret “shuts down.” I’d also like to add in an additional amplifiers, to allow a wider range of volumes, and make the controls a little more accessible: right now you need to reach inside the turret to turn it on and off, which, in additional to being inconvenient, feels a little wrong.
Over at Site 3, my friend Dana Sarafinchan is working on a life-sized Turret replica. I think once that’s done we’re going to work on making it fully functional: not just sensors and sounds, but opening side panels and perhaps even throwing some Nerf or Airsoft guns in there.
As always, if you’re interested in seeing what comes next, you can subscribe to my RSS feed.
Make more and get them to sing an opera.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_kPyGvqNn4Y
Awesome! It would be even cooler if it were resin and metal and had motion tracking, but everyone should have a plushie turret!
Don’t worry: we’re working on it. And that one will actually fire!
This is pure magic. Inspires me to shamelessly rip you off and make one of my own.
Thank you! I don’t really consider it a “rip off”; after all, I did post a description and the source code for a reason! (Plus, it’s not like I made those sound files myself.)
Please send me a link and/or pics if you make one!
Lasers!!
Great job! Did you rip the audio from the game install folders? Sharing the audio files might be legally questionable, so could you explain how to locate them if we own the game? Do you have to do anything with the files besides putting them in the correct directory on the wav shield? Thanks!
I was considering figuring out how to rip the sound files, but a quick Google search showed me that it wasn’t necessary.
The files were already in the correct format for the Wave Shield (mono WAV files), so yes: all I needed to do was set up the directories on the SD Card. I wrote the code to access the directories and play a random file myself, and it’s linked to in the post.
Make her say the Prometheus speech like the defective turret in Portal 2, the one that you get the “No Hard Feelings” achievement for. If you carry him around for a while she has a short monologue
I haven’t played Portal 2 yet! If you want to buy me a copy, though, I’d be happy to play through and make any updates as necessary. ;)
Do you have a video of you putting this together? I would love to make one of my own but I’ve never put together any electronics and would probably just break it, a video might help me not start a fire.
Sorry, I don’t have an assembly video. The hardest part, if you’ve never done anything like this before, is soldering the Wave Shield together. Here’s a roundup of tutorials, including videos, that might help get you started.
Creepy if at like midnight it just starts talking xD
If you guys ever are able to mass produce these or are going to sell them, Please let me know I don’t care price. I will buy one. or two. or maybe ten. I would love to have an army all over my desk.
Could you post a like “how to” step guide and pictures :) I would love to sit down and make one myself.
I would buy one of these!
Love the turrets on portal. Such sad little guys :(
And maybe throw in the Turret opera from the ending!! :D
I WILL BUY THIS SO HARD
A laser pointer on the front would be swell. Great job though!
I considered adding a laser pointer, but decided that the potential for blinding myself was too high.
Oh my god. This is incredible. I am simultaneously jealous of your talents and admiring your handiworks.
I am desperate to own one.
Ooh – ooh! Did you put in “I’m different”? That one’s the BEST!
Ok, I’ll shut up now.
Just try to get close to that baby. -Cave Johnson
Yea the companion cube is like so bleh.. dunno why everyone was so excited about a cube that did nothing and appeared in just a few levels in Portal 1 and for a brief moment in Portal 2. The turret is a much cooler Portal gadget to talk about, when it’s so interactive and appears everywhere in later parts of both Portal games.
If you make a small version of the turret, I’ll put two in my car. It’ll be so cool when my friends get in my car and the turret goes “There you are… *bang bang bang*” complete with laser of course. Oh do you think a paintball shooting version would be cool? Will be great in paintball games!
And also the defective turret from Portal 2.
they need portal 2 sounds, like, I’m different… that would make it soooo much cuter
Valve needs to hire you, mass produce these things and sell them!
I want one so much!
I would add a laser with a visible beam, cost about 20$ on DX…
BTW. this is really cool…but the voice is bearly hearable…turn up the volume =]
This is genious! Great work!
I think i’ll build one myself, they are just sooo cute ;-)
I’m not yet familiar with programming arduinos, but would a Arduino Pro Mini work as well?
Any Arduino or Arduino-compatible board should work, although the Wave Shield software runs much better on an ATMega328. The Arduino Pro Mini looks like it has a slightly different footprint than the standard board, so you’d have to run some wires to the shield.
I wonder how much you charge if you sell them…
Make one for meeeeee!!! So fantastic!
This is awesome!
“§ 30 Responses to “Portal turret plushie””
When and where i can buy it? Will it sell in Russia?
Or mb somebody will sell it on ebay? I want it!
Yeah.. i will buy one! mb later buy another one and later more.. mhm.. i’m in love :D
This is pretty awesome. Can’t believe it was featured on Kotaku. I’d like to build one myself. The assembly of the wave shield doesnt look too tough. Do you have schematics or anything on hooking up the infrared sensor, tilt and tact switches?? Send it to my email if so.
I’ll send pictures once i finish building one too :)
Please start mass-producing this! I will pay whatever the cost! Of course it has to be reasonable…
sell these. i have 5 sold no matter the price
I want 1 T_T
Shut up and take my money
SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY! Please, PLEASE make many of these, and sell them!
Or if you only make a few, do so quietly; and sell me one.
I don’t suppose there’s any sort of time frame on the pattern being posted by chance? I’m pretty excited to try it myself, and practicing the sewing is probably easier than practicing the internals. :P
Sorry, no timeline: Leigh is very busy with real work right now, and of course that takes priority. Keep checking, though, and hopefully in a week or two we’ll be able to have it up!
This is really cool. I make plush but am not so great an electronics, if you even want to collaborate let me know, I think we could make something gloriously geeky together :)
Stuff I sew http://babylondonstar.deviantart.com/
ZOMG i will buy 12 and i will be the most popular friend of all my friends! bwahaha sit in back, steve! seriously tho, i would purchase the shiz outta these…
do you sell them? how much??…. Shut up and take my money… that was my first reaction. I WANT ONE, but i’ll have to work mine out, as with all the cool things on the internet…
And now to add the machine guns..
Seriously, sell these, now.
You need to make a Blue Wireframed looking one to match the look of the defective turret. Then get those sound files and make us hear it say GOT ANY BULLETS!
I hope there’s a note somewhere in the changelog for your source code that reads ‘HUGE SUCCESS’ – awesome work, love it :-)
I want one of these. How much and where can I buy one. PLEASE email me the details
Here. Take my money. Seriously. I want that SO BAD.
Hey, will this be for sale anytime soon?
I WANT ONE. Please please please I want one. Get Valve to give you permission to sell them and TAKE MY MONEY.
Wow! This is spectacular! I would love to try and make this, but I have no electronic skills…
actually I was wondering if I could get some pointers on that? would making this be easier:
***CAUTION portal 2 spoiler craft thingy below***
I want to actually make a talking POTaDOS and use it in my Chell costume, but I don’t know how to go about doing that. I mean a potato battery is quite simple, but I would love to get a LED and get it to light up and talk! Would you have any pointers/tips/suggestions for me?
TAKE ALL MY MONEY!!!
TAKE WHATEVER YOU NEED!!!!
I WANT IT!!!!
Have you tried getting in contact with Valve? This is a fairly guaranteed hit, both with the company and customers.
So cool ^^ Congrats, man :D
How much did this cost you to make?
It cost me about $60 in parts, but that’s because I did it the quick-and-expensive way. If I were to do it again, I think I could get it down to about $30, less if I were making many of them.
take my money pls
MY MONEY.
TAKE IT ALL.
Moreso than selling kits or making one ourselves, you should send one to VALVe. That’s some awesome fanwork !