How To: When Life Gives You Lemons, Make Lemon Grenades (Portal 2's Cave Johnson Would Be Proud)

Portal has been one of the most critically acclaimed and universally loved games of the last few years, and there's plenty of fan art to prove it. From building a Portal gun, to a gravity defying Companion Cube, and even installing Portal onto a graphing calculator, fans have found some innovative ways to show their love for the games.

One of the most commonly referenced scenes in Portal is Cave Johnson's monologue on lemons:

"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back! Get mad! I don't want your damn lemons, what the hell am I supposed to do with these? Demand to see life's manager! Make life rue the day it thought it could give Cave Johnson lemons! Do you know who I am? I'm the man who's gonna burn your house down! With the lemons! I'm gonna get my engineers to invent a combustible lemon that burns your house down!"

So, Jen over on Epbot decided to bring his infamous words to life by making these DIY lemon grenades that even make the ticking sound of a grenade when the pin is pulled.

The materials are pretty simple and shouldn't cost much at all. Here's what you'll need:

• Fake lemon
• Grenade toy (with sound effects)
• Beading pins
• Screwdriver
• X-Acto knife
• Dremel

Jen took apart the toy grenade, keeping the battery, speaker, and switch intact, and put them into a hole she cut in the Styrofoam lemon. The battery case should be as small as possible, so trim off any unnecessary pieces and try to get it flush with the lemon "peel."

Next, she cut off the top part of the grenade and painted it matte black, although you could skip the paint if you don't mind army green.

With the battery inside the lemon, she taped the wires around the speaker to hold them in place and stuck the speaker between the battery and the grenade topper. She drilled holes in the topper with a Dremel, then used beading pins to hold the whole thing together.

Jen went the extra mile by designing her own stencil of the Aperture logo and painting it onto her grenades. She also replaced the plastic pins with nicer looking metal ones, and made an official-looking display case, complete with a legit name and patent number (which actually came from the game!)

And finally, here's what happens when you pull the pin.

For more details and photos, you can check out Jen's tutorial on her blog and Instructables.

Did you know that Portal isn't just fun, but an important part of growing up?