Portal Turret Project
My goal in this project is to make a small roughly six inch tall replica of a turret from the video game Portal. I wanted it to do three primary things: Light up, Make noise, and move in some way. I started by researching projects that other people have made I found a video of a full size turret that was sent to the creators of the game as well as a few different plans for 3D versions of them on the internet. I planned to use internet plans to create the bot on the 3D printer then I would adhere vinyl cut decals to the sides and use Arduino to animate it.
|
Timeline
Originally I thought I could start working on this robot right away. I had planned to start working on parts in October and November but I quickly realized that this would not be realistic. To do this project right I needed to finish all of my Arduino projects first in order to learn as much as I could about them. I needed to understand Arduino before I could start building. I also couldn't build the body of the turret until I understood what I wanted to put inside and how much space wiring would take up. My timeline shifted so that I would be working on my final project only through December and January to give me time to finish Arduino.
The first thing I started on was making sure that my print would have space for the parts I wanted after I had ordered them. Then I printed the body in the 3D printer near the middle of December. The turret was split into 10 parts. I printed each one. Then I worked on the vinyl cuts for the sides after we got back from winter break. I had to scale back my designs because they were too small to be cut. By then I had finished all of my Arduino projects and worked on the code and wiring. I realized that my 3D Prints would not lend themselves to everything I wanted so I reevaluated my situation. I decided that I wouldn't be able to comfortably fit a servo inside the turret so I looked for another solution. I settled on creating a turntable for my turret to sit on. I finished this turntable in the last few weeks in the semester and then worked on the code
Creating a robot
The three machines I used when creating this project were the 3D printer, the vinyl cutter, and Arduino. I'm going to go through each of them and talk about exactly what I did to get each part working.
|
3D Printing
I decided to grab my plans off of the internet because I was not skilled enough to make something that would be able to live up to my vision for this project with only the resources I had. TinkerCad is ok for small, geometric shapes but it would have been nearly impossible for me to make something that resembled what I wanted especially when other people have created thousands of good resources to aid me . Here are the files that I used to create my turret.
|
Vinyl Cutting
Cutting the vinyl was not too hard I made a design and plotted it on illustrator. It looked good so I went to print it. It was very small so I had to modify it slightly. I made the font larger and removed the smallest font I had
|
Arduino
I had three basic systems to build in Arduino. I had to make one for the light, one for the servo and one for the piezo. Once I created all three of my systems I could connect them together in one set of code. I wired each component in to my breadboard and began to code. If I needed help I would scour the internet for people that had made similar circuits that I could try and replicate.
|
Light |
Sound |
Movement |
The Final Code
Videos of testing the code
|
|
|
Final Showcase
Summary
I learned a lot from this semester. I think that I really have a good grasp of Arduino and with a little future practice I could get even better with it. I feel like I understand and appreciate the technology in the innovation center more as well. Sometimes technology can be are tricky but it can always be improved. My goal in creating this project was to learn how to code in Arduino to a larger extent than what I knew before. I really felt that this project kept me wanting to get better and get smarter because it could open a world of possibilities. I'm starting to piece the building blocks together in my head which makes me happy. I am proud of this little bot I've created. It doesn't do much and it isn't the prettiest thing in the world but it represents a stepping stone to what can be achieved with more practice and skill.