Alien Isolation-Inspired "Seegson Vidicom"

[XRaySpecs]

Hi all,

Let me start with a lil’ disclaimer/introduction:
1) I am a total amateur, working entirely with hand tools since I live in an apartment and have been forbidden from using power tools by She Who Rules, lest we disturb the neighbours. Please try to overlook any spots of poor build quality!
2) I want to show this off, but that doesn’t mean I’m happy with everything on it. For example, the U-shaped plate around the handset warped when I spraypainted it, and I know my keycard handle looks like it belongs in a kid’s wooden building blocks set. I just had to get it to a relatively finished state before I lost my mind.
3) By some cosmic coincidence, Adam Savage’s “Star Trek Captain’s Chair” build video came out just as I was entering the latter stages of building this. Our concepts are pretty similar!
(Link if you haven’t seen it: youtu.be/jaVi06DaTk0)
A big thanks to Mr. Savage and the Tested team for giving me a major boost of motivation to get this done, in the “if they can do it, then so can I” sense...! (And yes, my “Working Joe” button is directly inspired by the “Call me Scotty” button.)

So! I’m an Alien series fan, and I was really happy when the game Alien: Isolation came out. I’ve spent many a terrified hour wandering the corridors of Sevastopol station. I wanted to create something that looked like it would fit into that universe, specifically borrowing the “Seegson” corporate aesthetic from the game – I really like its sense of being a failing company as counterpart to the ubiquitous and omnipotent Weyland-Yutani.

I’ll shut up now and let video me do the talking. (Forgive the casual tone of the video, it was originally shot for upload to Facebook.) If you have any questions, feel free to ask.

Thanks for taking a look; you are all perfect organisms.

XRay

[video=vimeo;130331353]https://vimeo.com/130331353[/video]

 

[Mike J.]

Neat!

...Though it looks awfully clean and new for the Aliens universe, I think...

So, what's it made of? Is that a phone handset? Does it work?

(And I think you mean She Who Must Be Obeyed )


-MJ

 

[IamSteve]

I love Alien Isolation, i think you've captures the aesthetic very well.

 

[XRaySpecs]

Thanks guys, and hi Mike - long time no speak!

Yeah, it is looking pretty clean and new... but I'm a bit stumped on how to weather it since the "save station" panel is a sticker sheet printed from an inkjet printer. I'm not sure how it'll react to paints, coffee, or even a protective clear coat.

It is a phone handset, and yes it does work - I can run the audio through it, or if the fancy takes me, plug it into my phone and use it to make calls.

The unit itself is mostly plywood, surfaced with putty and sanded smooth (ish). There's also some MDF here and there.
The panels are styrene - 1mm thickness for the U-shaped panel around the handset, and 2mm thickness for the save station panel.
You can't see it much in the video, but the top section has an aluminium covering at the back. The "hinges" that reveal the mouse pad are aluminium too, as is the little decorative panel near the top.

The camera lens part is an old polaroid camera I found at a junk hardware store and picked up for a dollar.
I don't know how obvious it is, but the lamps aren't actually "real." I couldn't source the type I wanted, so instead I cast them in clear resin from Vernier thruster model kit parts. The dials are also resin casts since I didn't want to keep buying dozens of the things if and when I make more things like this.
The big square buttons are real arcade gamey buttons, I just changed out their bulbs for LEDs.

As for what makes it work, I'm using an Arduino Uno along with the MP3 Trigger board from robertsonics/Sparkfun. It didn't work precisely as advertised since it doesn't actually accept digital inputs from the Arduino's digital pins, but I managed to get it working via serial communication.
The keycard insert is triggered by... an IR distance sensor mounted inside the box. Unfortunately it's so jumpy at short range that I have to insert the keycard at a slant to get the desired response from it. But such is life!

 

[Triin]

So awesome! I loved the save station so much I modeled one ( maybe for shapeways..... maybe?) Except I called mine "Telecomm" Since I actually want to make the phone part usable with a house phone. You definitely gave me some ideas and some insight with the Arduino. Great Job!!