Alpaca-Pack

The second major project in the first year Design Nature class focused on working in a group of 5-6 students to create a play experience that would teach 4th graders about a certain animal and a specific motion. The purpose of this was to expose us to teaming dynamics, complex design constraints (materials, funds, time, etc.), and teach us how to create something with the purpose of constructing an “experience” that seeks to delight an unpredictable audience. Fourth graders, needless to say, can be extremely critical and fickle. Over several weeks we went through the process of researching, ideating, prototyping, designing, re-designing, and constructing our play experience. This involved two major design reviews in which we were evaluated by both our peers and our instructors in order to ensure that we were on the right path. The final demonstration involved full-scale playable activities that the 4th graders could tour and judge based on different merits such as story-telling through experience, accurate mimicry of animal movement, and entertainment.

Our group was assigned the alpaca. After researching play dynamics of the target age-group and suggesting some of our ideas to fourth graders from a local elementary school, we decided our motion would be “spitting”. Our end product was a game in which two fourth graders become the spitting alpacas, defending their food from rival alpacas. The spitting action was created by constructing an alpaca head that could be worn (an Alpaca-pack as we called it) by the fourth grader and operated by pulling back on the alpaca ears. This pulled the trigger on a water bottle enclosed by the alpaca head that was designed for fast removal so that we could easily refill the bottle after a couple of rounds of play. This ear-pulling motion also mimicked the same action that alpacas partake in to signal their annoyance before spitting. The targets were large cut-outs of alpacas with litmus paper targets that would change colors when the water hit it. We also constructed scenery such as bushes and a short fence to add to the experience. In the end, the fourth graders really seemed to enjoy the game (especially because they got to “spit” water) and when the votes were counted our project was the overall favorite.