If you’ve seen a Portal trailer, you’ll know about the “friendly” white machine that I’m talking about.
Here’s a quick primer for those of you unfamiliar with Portal. Portal is a game where you are a test subject located in a testing facility. You have a gun that can shoot out ends of a portal, which you can step through one to get to the other. There are different methods of getting through the portal, such as jumping, running, and walking, and these different methods will allow you to land a different distance from the other end of the portal, which can either save your life or doom it. Your goal is typically to get to the other side of the “room,” and there are usually obstacles that keep it from being a walk in the park. The sentry turret is one of these obstacles.
In case you’re curious, here’s a pretty informative Portal trailer. (You can see the sentry turret at around 1:00 in the video.)
Project designer Zane Pickett can’t see a reason not to build this 40-inch replica. Luckily for us, the sentry turret won’t be shooting test subjects and whatnot, but it will be mounted with a camera. By backing this project, you can get yourself anything from a weighted cube to a full out sentry turret. Surprisingly enough, you can also get an Aperture Laboratories (or “Aperture Science”) plaque. I think the slight adjustment in their name allows for them to publish it — either way, it’s still a pretty cool idea.
As expected, there’s a ton of work that goes into this sentry turret replica. It’s impressive because of the diversity in activity: not only does Pickett have to create manual schematics and design and render this replica in 3D, but he also has to build the actual replica itself! Kudos friend.
If you liked this post, check out the GladOS potato and these funny-looking Portal personality spheres. If you believe in this project, you can help financially support it using Kickstarter.
