It’s been over 4 years since Portal 2 launched, but Wheatley, the AI character with a British accent, remains a captivating character. [Evie Bee] built a Wheatley replica complete with sound, movement, and one glowing eye.
The body of Wheatley is made out of blue insulation foam, also called XPS foam, laminated together with UHU Polyurethane glue. This formed a sphere, which was then cut into a detailed body. Papier mache clay was used to strengthen the thin foam.
The electronics for this build provide light, motion, and sound. The eye is moved by a total of 3 Arduino controlled servos: two for the movement of the eye, and one to allow it to open and close. Movement is controlled by two joysticks. Sound is provided by the Adafruit Sound Board, which connects to a speaker and a Velleman Sound to Light Kit. This kit controls the LEDs that light the eye, making it react to the voice of Wheatley.
You can watch this Wheatley rant at you after the break. Of course if you’re going to have a Wheatley you need a GLaDOS potato as well.
It’s good, but it still needs his dual handle eyebrows. Interestingly in game wheatley’s eyelids don’t exist as objects, they’re totally flat because otherwise it doesn’t all fit, here you have physical eyelids by recessing his eye a little further.
Looks great, just wanna point out that theres a extra degree of freedom in the ingame version, one [Evie Bee] might want to consider, because that one is a big part of ‘giving it emotion’; the eye (and eyelids) need to be able to rotate counterclockwise/clockwise like 45′ each.
That said, i’d love to have this, even without the above described degree of freedom
Very nicely done!
I’ve always thought that Portal 2 had some of the coolest props of any game ever (Wheatley, Turrets, Companion Cubes, etc.), so I think it’s great whenever someone brings one of these items out into the real world.
I still want a Wheatley turret cube to drag itself around my appartment
That would be awesome, especially if it had audio from the game. You could really creep out your guests with that. :D
perhaps an EL circle instead of LEDs behind the eye?
Anyone know a good way to silence those servos?