It’s 11 years since Steam’s Orange Box came out, which is probably making you feel really elderly. Portal was the highlight of the game bundle for me — cue giant argument in the comments — and it still holds up brilliantly. It’s even in the Museum of Modern Art’s collection; there’s nothing that quite says you’re part of the establishment like being in a museum. Cough.
I bought an inflatable Portal turret to add to the decor in Raspberry Pi’s first office (I’m still not sure why; I just thought it was a good idea at the time, like the real-life Minecraft sword). Objects and sounds from the game have embedded themselves in pop culture; there’s a companion cube paperweight somewhere in my desk at home, and I bet you’ve encountered a cake that looks like this sometime in the last 11 years or so.
But turrets, cakes, and companion cubes pale into viral insignificance next to the game’s outstanding antagonist, GLaDOS, a psychopathic AI system who just happens to be my favourite video game bad guy of all time. So I was extremely excited to see Element14’s DJ Harrigan make an animatronic GLaDOS, powered, of course, by a Raspberry Pi.
Animitronic GLaDOS Head with Raspberry Pi
The Portal franchise is one of the most engaging puzzle games of the last decade and beyond the mind-bending physics, is also known for its charming A.I. antagonist: G.L.a.D.O.S. Join DJ on his journey to build yet more robotic characters from pop culture as he “brings her to life” with a Raspberry Pi and sure dooms us all.
Want to make your own? You’ll find everything you need here. I’ve been trying awfully hard not to end this post on a total cliche, but I’m failing hard: this was a triumph.
Website: LINK
