Little Owl Construction Co.
Little Owl Construction Co. is a five-person team of graduate students at Carnegie Mellon University’s Entertainment Technology Center. The team is working with ETC Outreach, Extension, and Engagement to build a prototype of a physical interactive platform in collaboration with the Boys and Girls Clubs of Western Pennsylvania to get middle-schoolers interested in higher education in the entertainment technology industry.
By leveraging the design methodologies and team-based learning used at the ETC as inspiration, they aim to create an experience where children can take on interdisciplinary roles and tell a story collaboratively using creative technology.
Fall 2025
Team Members:
Jasmin Ali-Diaz Melanie Danver
Ean McFadden Devika Santosh
Courtney Singleton
Project Instructors:
Drew Davidson & Shirley Saldamarco
Project Website:
Problem: How do we create a platform that can introduce kids to the entrainment technology fields and possibly get them interested in higher education.
Our Solution: Let Kids create an animatronic show from custom interfaces and simple controls.
Project deliverables included:
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A Story Station; consisting of a whiteboard, magnetic white board tiles, and a vinyl cut prompt
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4 Custom built Interactive podium stations
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An Art Station that allowed the design and creation of backgrounds on a digital drawing tablet
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A Programming (Movement) Station that used a block code interface to create a timeline of movements they could instantly test and redesign
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A Sound Station that had custom sounds and background music to be tested and played during the show
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A Lighting Station that allowed kids to see how RGB light colors mix and how it changes the mood of a scene
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A custom built Stage with screen backdrop and programable lights
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A modified Bottango Animatronic
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A Facilitator station, that allowed changes to the programming as the Boys and Girls club saw fit
Final Project Video
Dawn: Bottango Reskinned Animatronic
Electronics used from a Maxwell Parrot Bottango kit. Base wood and metal pieces were trimmed and reshaped with machinery. Feathers were made of foam and wire then attached onto a foil shell to keep the structure lighter. Details were hand sculpted with air dry clay around head, chest, top of back and wings. Painted with acrylic paint and sealed with gloss and matte coat for durability.
Base Kit Assembled
Final Modifications
In Progress Images:
My contributions general contributions were helping with ideation of experience loop, art station, animatronic reskinning and playtesting. I designed the team's mascot logo, poster, and half sheet for the project. During production, I created all of the art station assets from the pre-set backgrounds to the "sticker" elements. I also spear headed the final physical creation of the story station and all it's elements, the stage and podiums paint design, and the redesign and implementation of our Owl Animatronic, Dawn, from reshaping, sculpting, and painting.
Poster / Half Sheet / Logos
Background Art and Stickers
Throughout development, we were asked what if children would be intimidated by the drawing/backdrop from a blank page. To combat this, we wanted to provide them with some options, they could either create their own from scratch or start with a template backdrop similar to a coloring book page. I created a few background options that could be expanded upon in several directions, including country road, mountains, outer space, and cityscape(inspired by the Pittsburgh skyline that kids from the boys and girls club of Western PA could recognize).
Along with the backgrounds, we developed "Stickers" that users could decorate their backdrop with. Icons were decided based on early paper prototype testing and user feedback on what they created and needed for their stories. Each sticker could be dragged onto the background, rotated, and resized as many time as the user wanted.
General Development, Ideation, Concept
Here are overall development files from week 1 through week 14, displaying the various Project Proposals, Storyboards, prototypes to final execution, etc.
Week 4: Paper Prototype
Week 9: Playtest Day
Week 14: Final Implementation
Storyboard prototype of the Experience:
Stage and Podium Design:
I wanted to take the ETC logo and connect it to the platform we were making in a visual sense. I took visual elements and colors, redesigned them to work with the shape of the objects, then hand painted them in an 8 hour thanksgiving weekend painting spree!
ETC Logo 2025
Design Sketches
Painting Weekend
Final Look
Final Presentation:
Media: