Portal-ish Automated Turret

turret

[RazorConcepts] has built this cool automated turret. It is a home made frame with an airsoft gun, a Roboduino development board, a rangefinder, camera, and some servos.  They programmed it to keep up constant random banter from the game as well as respond appropriately do different inputs. For example, it complains when you pick it up or knock it over as well as announcing if it has acquired a target. The range finder is mounted on its own servo which constantly sweeps back and forth, so the turret itself mainly sits still. You can see that the tracking is not so great in the video. [RazorConcepts] notes in the instructable that this is because the main focus was just to make it for “show”. We’ve seen our fair share of turrets before. We think he did a good job, but if it is just for show, maybe spend some more time on a nice body and smoother motion.

[vimeo=4070435]

[via instructables]

21 thoughts on “Portal-ish Automated Turret

  1. awesome job. the range finder might not be the best option for tracking, but it looks like you’ve made it work fairly well.

    also, it needs to freak out and shoot randomly for a few seconds when tipped over like the portal turrets. that would rock.

  2. Rangefinder is really noisy, as rivet geek said:
    “should have used frame comparison instead of a range finder, but overall great”

    This would be much more like the portal turrets, thus earning more points. You alreadt have the camera mounted and wired, so you just need to ditch your rangefinder and get an imaging library for the roboduino.

    Also, if it is going to talk trash every few seconds, you should somehow make it keep doing what it is doing.

  3. Would-have could-have should-have’s aside, I’d say this is extremely well done.

    As with any project it could use a little refinement, but in the stage it’s shown in right now it’s still really really impressive!

    I’d love to see a bunch of them deployed in

    [a live fire course for military androids]

Leave a Reply

Please be kind and respectful to help make the comments section excellent. (Comment Policy)

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.