Inspired by the popular Portal video game franchise, Raxius Bloom, Martin Miller, Ben Pawlowski, and Giovanni Velez decided to create a model turret gun modeled after the ones featured in the game. Within the lore of the game, the turret is advertised as a consumer-grade version of a military defense turret that is intended to be used in the home to protect loved ones. It has the ability to locate, track, follow, and execute commands once a target is found.

The turret operates in four different modes (demo, friendly, sentry, and defective) and will track a target and sound an alarm based on if an intruder is an enemy or not. It is also programmed to speak and play different songs depending on what mode it's in

Click the image below for a slideshow of the build instructions.

Click here to download full build instructions including source code.

The eye of the turret uses a signal recognized from the camera and follows the signal's movements in real time. A gimbal inside the eye allows for a full range of motion within 180 degrees (90 degrees up, down, left, and right). If the signal is determined to be an “enemy” it will trigger a sound from the FX board notifying the successful acquisition of the signal and begin “firing” the guns mounted on either side of the turret. Figure 1 shows the basic components from the front view.

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[All images courtesy of Ben Pawlowski]