The Raspberry Pi can be found in quite a few prop heads, one of our favorites being this Terminator project. Today we’ve got another exciting robotic replica noggin to share with you, this one created by a maker known as Illicitpugs over at Reddit. With the help of our favorite SBC and a 3D printer, they’ve managed to create a droid head replica from the 2022 game Stray.
According to Illicitpugs, they noticed that the droids in Stray bore a resemblance to classic Macintosh PCs. After mulling over the design, Illicitpugs decided to create one of these Stray droids from scratch—or at least just the head.
The end result is a beautiful replica complete with a working LCD face and stand to prop the head upright. The face has a knob in the corner that can be used to rotate through different facial expressions that Illicitpugs confirmed were taken from the game. The knob also works as a button that will change the color scheme when pressed.
The shell for the head was designed by Illicitpugs using Fusion 360 and 3D printed. The size was determined by the LCD panel and built around it to get the right proportions based on how the droids look in the game. Inside is a Raspberry Pi 3A+ alongside an Adafruit i2c rotary encoder board and a Pimoroni HyperPixel Square LCD screen.
The interface was built from scratch, as well, using a nodeJS as a full-screen application. It launches as soon as the Pi is powered on via Chrome using Kiosk Mode. The face sprites are animated to give a more lively appearance rather than static images.
In Stray, your role is to solve the mystery of a long lost world. A world where robots, created by organic lifeforms, now reside long after the demise of their creators. The game mixes futuristic technology with 1980s influences, hence the classic Apple Mac robotic resemblance. Oh, the game is played from the viewpoint of a cat, who has strayed from their group.
If you want to recreate this Raspberry Pi project, check out the original thread shared to Reddit to get a closer look and be sure to follow Illicitpugs for future creations.
