So I've been asked to build a minigolf hole for a friends birthday party, obviously I've chosen a Portal theme for it. I've been sketching out ideas for the various parts and decided to recreate the "burning the companion cube" moment for the end piece.

After a few days of sketching I finally got started and built a wooden frame out of junk wood in the workshop, then I mounted the Iris Door mechanism to it.

The door needs a surround to protect the mechanism from errant balls, so I cut a hole in a bin-lid and used some thin plastic to create an inset for the door

Bit of priming and painting:

The next step was to make it look like this is a waste-disposal pipe thats poking out of a rock, for that I covered the whole thing in chicken wire then plaster bandages. Once that had set I mixed Rock Plaster and black paint powder together and daubed it on, roughing it up with a sponge and brush to get a rocky texture

I got no photos of this stage due to my hands being covered in plaster:)

Also added a little warning stripe to the outer ring of the hole too :)

and there it is!

The plaster had set in the bottom of the bucket so I smashed it out to make pebbles for the top. It hides the hap in the rock nicely. Also added a laser-cut Aperture Science decal to the top

So thats the hole built, time for the ramp! Just a simple bit of hardboard bent up and hooked over the ledge. Its removeable for storage too.

Bolted it to a base and then attached the Pedestal button to it, there some grass being delivered soon to finish the ramp off

Now, to make it look like a furnace..

BOOM! Smoke machine and DMX light set to bright orange!

One final thing to do is automate all of this and run it off a single arduino board. I dismantled the smoke machine switch and found that it floats at 240v, so there isnt any way I'm going to be switching that easily, so I took the low-tech approach to the problem:

Works a treat! The arduino is set to listen for the portal button, once it gets pressed the smoke machine pulses for 2 seconds and the door opens. This gives it a nice blast of smoke just as the door opens and makes it look awesome :) Some of the smoke leaks out of the doors but that all adds to the effect

This all needs mounting properly. I've got a wave-shield on order and once that arrives I'll set about wiring this all properly.

and heres a video of it all, I have two more parts of the course to build, a set of turrets and a working golfball portal :D