Aperture Science Business Card

I am a huge fan of Portal. I still remember the first time I looked through the very first portal in the game, and the way it bent my mind. I've been hooked ever since. In the second game, you get to "meet" Cave Johnson, CEO of Aperture Science, and I thought to myself, "what kind of crazy business card would he have?" After seeing Thingiverse user clide's Iris Business Card , I knew I had to make a version based on Portal. I decided to incorporate the iris in the device into the actual logo for Aperture Science. Ok! Let's start thinking with portals!

Step 1 Materials/Tools

Materials:
 * Heavy paper, such as card stock.
 * Thin cardboard, the kind that's not corrugated.
 * Double-sided tape. You might be able to use glue, but I haven't tried it.

Tools:
 * Scissors.
 * X-Acto knife or box cutter. The sharper, the better.
 * Tweezers.
 * Printer

Comments

[kelseymh]

In Step 4, you wrote, "Congratulations! There will be cake and grief counseling at the conclusion of this Instructable."

So where's the cake? Oh, wait....

[robertrunyon]

The cake is a lie.

[Kryptonite]

More importantly, where's that grief counseling?

[Atlas Portal 2]

it didn't print certain parts of the card for some reason. :(

[bvdraftingman]

hey, is there any way you could upload a dxf or dwg file? or even one from a different drawing program like that?

[drknotter]

I made it in Inkscape, so the only other option would be .svg, which I just now uploaded. I hope this helps.

[dvillegas duque]

Hello there! i was wondering if you can use staples instead of double-sided tape.
Hope you answer
BTW This is just awesome!!

[drknotter]

You could probably use staples instead of tape, but they'd have to be pretty strong staples to get through the cardboard.

[nave50cal]

what if you changed "aperature science" into "awesome", and leaving the "A" on the mechinisim there. and changing "cave johnson" into your name.

[clide]

Very cool, I'm surprised I hadn't seen this before. Good job modifying the design.

I'm impressed that you were able to make one with 8 leafs.

[drknotter]

Thanks for the comment! I really appreciate you stopping by to look, since you were my inspiration. Getting 8 leaves was definitely a challenge, and even if you build it perfectly, it's still a little finicky. However, I think the biggest change I made from your designs was getting rid of the tabs that wrap around the inner circle. I could see that their purpose was to hold the handle piece steady during rotation, but the eight leaves were getting in the way. So then, I decided to put an interior cardboard slice to hold the handle piece, instead. It seems to work out ok.

Phew, long comment! Thanks for commenting again, and let me know what you think about my idea/if you have any questions.

[clide]

Yep that is how I initially designed it with a thicker board around the outside of the rotating part, but it had a tendency to bind up and required more precision in the assembly as well as more parts to deal with.

After that I had the tabs on the rotating part and looped them through the front as you can see on the 4 leaf version: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:8944
This gets them more out of the way of the leafs, however that method would interfere with the aesthetic effect you were going for.

Since I was trying to sell these I was trying to optimize my design for ease of assembly and few parts. One thing that could make it a little smoother is instead of the fold out tabs for pivot points on the leafs you could use a circular piece glued to the leaf with a larger circle on the other side to hold it into the handle. Use a hole punch of the proper size to get perfect circles. Of course this makes assembly much more difficult, but if you are just doing a few it is probably worth the extra effort. This was something I did on the earliest prototypes when I was just trying to make sure the concept was sound.

[barfbag97]

Is there a way i could put my own name on it instead of Cave Johnson? cause that would be cool

p.s. awesome instructible by the way :D

[zap8005]

you can click on the 'graphic select tool' button select the whole thing an copy it onto paint & rub out the writing

[roomen]

Yeah i did it, made it just with paper and stick glue, only addition was to tape down the little flaps that go through the handle, else the flaps wouldn't stay in, works pretty good though.
Only thing i'm missing is a back piece to hide the other flaps.
Although the reason i made this one was because of the iris mechanism, i finally fully understand it :)

[BenMillen]

if this was laser cut in metal it could make an awesome finger/cigar cutter for some sort of bond vilan type :D

awesome ible btw :)

[kvnfln9000]

i figured out how to make it open but i am stillworking on modifing your design

it is going to work =)

[jamiec53]

What font did you use for the Cave Johnson bit?

[drknotter]

I don't have it on me right now, as I'm out of town. I got it off of some free font website, I think it was called "Sawsadee".

[jamiec53]

OK, thanks. By the way, this is so cool :)

[lilliu97]

ummm somethings gone wrong when i push down it closes and i cant push up

[drknotter]

Can you describe the problem in more detail? Are you sure you put the flaps through the holes in the correct order? The handle has to be in approximately the position that it's in in the first picture when putting the flaps through the holes

[TechKid67]

I would enjoy the opposite version as well where it opens when operating the lever.

[RollerScrapper]

I may have messed up since I didn't have all the holes marked, so it was nearly impossible to line up the little tabs, so I used brads, much easier! The only problem is it makes the card really thick. But at least it came together!

[drknotter]

Awesome! That looks great! How did you attach the brads to the eight thin pieces?

[RollerScrapper]

Brads are just tiny paper fasteners, and the head of the brad was large enough that i just poked the thin end through and folded the pieces out and the head stayed on the other side of the thin piece. You can get brads at any craft store, and it lessened the frustration because the paper method was just too difficult for me (probably due to my messy cutting at that point) :)

[Kryptonite]

Awesome! It's really cool to see when people actually make stuff, that turned out pretty neat.

[RollerScrapper]

This was a lot of fun, it really made me wish I had a laser cutter!
Now I want to make one with my friend's name because he is a photographer

[splazem]

Sweet!

[27-ton Artillery Walker]

awesome, just made one and used a glue stick. everything attaches well except for the top left corner of the front, but besides that, great intractable!

[drknotter]

Woot! Post a picture!

[jharvison]

this looks amazingbut do you thin k you could modify it to instead of cave johnson your own name then you can say that you like worked there just a suggestion please reply

[drknotter]

Heh, I thought of using my real name, but then I thought that I don't think I'd ever want to actually work at Aperture. What with the mandatory testing on their employees and all.

[jharvison]

im just saying it would be a cool prop and if i was a CEO like it says on the card you could change all that and invent robots instead or take volunteers or even have some for hire

[RollerScrapper]

Great instructable! I see you are using double sided tape that comes off a roll. This step of gluing the back on might be easier if you get an adhesive tape roller at a craft store, the tape/glue part is narrower and it gets applied as you roll the tape on...this might make it much more precise application and then you won't have to cut off the excess tape.

[drknotter]

Interesting, I've never heard of such a thing. That would definitely make it easier to stick the pieces together.

[jamiec53]

Wow. An aperture in an aperture business card! So cool.

[RollerScrapper]

I'm trying this now, but for some reason my pdf only printed two small circles in the handle, where yours has 8

[that asian nerd]

AWESOME

[chuck_29]

this is genious, mr. johnson would be proud.