ACTION STICK FIGURE KIT

In Fall 2022 I was enrolled in the introductory Digital Multimedia Design (DMD) class at Penn State that is required for my DMD major. For the final semester project, I created an open-design modular toy kit based on an action stick figure.

This course project introduced me to the world of open-design where users co-create products based upon community shared design information and examples. Open-design has parallels with open-source hardware and software which allow users to modify product distributions to facilitate specific purposes. Open-design is an upstream construct since it specifically provides the shared blueprints for open-source products that are generally physical in nature.

The action stick figure project was an opportunity to showcase my understanding of open-design, create logical instruction workflows, and hone creative digital art skills. This project was anchored in open-design themes since it provided plans for the baseline component manifest, how to assemble features like articulation points, and offered extended example products to inspire new user design blueprints and ideas. The instructions below guide a user through the process of creating the example action stick figure and demonstrate some other creation examples such as a stick cat and Pteranodon. The instructional digital art diagrams were done in Paint 3D and provide an idealistic vision of final products. The inserted photographs were provided to show explicit construction steps and demonstrate the real-world viability of the open-design toy kit idea.