Portal Putty

Hmm. Something that ties in everything that I was planning on writing about in this blog...

Portal is a game series made by Valve. It was originally released as part of the bundle package called "The Orange Box," which is available on both PC, PS3, Xbox360. The PC version was mostly distributed through Steam. The bundle included Half-Life 2, Team Fortress 2, and introduced Portal into the world.

The storyline of the game is quite complicated. The main character (named Chell, not that it really comes up in gameplay too often), must complete tasks presented by GLaDOS, an artificial intelligence that has been put in charge of Aperture Science. Chell completes these tasks by using a "portal gun" to shoot portals on cement surfaces in order to move through each level. You must overcome obstacles such as turrets, lasers, and pools of deadly chemicals. The driving force to complete all the puzzles was the promise of cake at the end, but GLaDOS lies. The cake is a lie. (If you ever hear anyone say that, now you know where it comes from.) Portal was a huge hit in the gaming world; it got to be so popular, they made a second one: Portal 2.

Portal 2 was a huge improvement off of Portal, which was spectacular to begin with. GLaDOS, after being defeated by Chell in Portal, has been awakened. Chell was imprisoned in Aperture since the end of the first game. She now has to break out of Aperture if she wishes to live, as GLaDOS now wants revenge on her. In Portal 2, Valve introduces three gels: propulsion gel, repulsion gel, and conversion gel. Propulsion gel obviously propels, often over large gaps of flooring. Repulsion gel allows Chell to bounce higher than the normal jump, which lets her reach ledges normally out of reach. Conversion gel gives Chell the ability to make portals on surfaces she normally couldn't make them on, such as metal. (Portals only hold on cement, and metal just bounces the rays off.)

This post is getting somewhere. A product has been developed (sold on ThinkGeek.com) to make "Portal gels." They don't work like they did in the game, but they are pretty cool. They are solid putties, but also have liquid properties. They drip, bounce, stretch, shatter, and all sorts of other stuff. You can pour it out, but collect it together and hold it in a ball in your hand. It works by using the PDMS's (Poly Dimethyl Siloxane) high molecular weight, which gives it a "characteristic polymeric relaxation time," which means that it relaxes from a stretched state through thermal vibrations. The boric acid in it gives it more solid properties than liquid properties, though. The crosslinks it creates are dynamic, which means that it isn't stuck in one state. The science behind the product is mind boggling!

I think the post is long enough and that last paragraph made my head hurt, so I think now is a pretty good place to leave off. I'm going to leave some cool pictures of the stuff down here so you can "oooh" and "aaaah" at it. Here's a link to the putty and where you can buy it: http://www.thinkgeek.com/geektoys/science/e970/