Prototypes

Interactive Avatar: The Last Airbender Episode

One of my dreams while working at Noggin was to someday get access to Nickelodeon’s flagship series (and one of my personal favorite TV shows) Avatar: The Last Airbender (ATLA). During my time there, Noggin specifically didn’t have the rights to the show’s IP, but I developed a prototype for what a potential “interactive episode” of ATLA might look like, utilizing the season 2 episode “The Tales of Ba Sing Se” as an example. My hope was that one day Noggin would indeed get access to the show’s IP and I’d be positioned to potentially build off of something like this. Although this ultimately never happened, I remain proud of the work and the potential it carried. Click the photo above to see the work and its analysis.

Nogginville Minigame: The Elevator

Team Size: 1

Timeframe: 1 week

Prompt: Develop a mini-game for Nogginville that incorporates one of the team’s learning prompts

As part of Noggin’s release of its new, sandbox-like platform Nogginville, the team began incorporating short, 2D minigame to teach one of the many learning prompts we hope kids can accomplish through play. My eventual prototype, completed in June 2023, took the form of the “Elevator game,” in which you get to ride a magic elevator to different locations whilst also encouraging learning of “Identifies numerals & counts in sequence.”

I pulled background images and a Nogginville character asset to use from online, but otherwise designed and drew my own assets using Adobe Photoshop. The interaction itself then consisted of “building” the elevator shaft by stacking different smaller assets on top of each other, and then a series of hide/reveal logic that show different backgrounds depending on your “floor.” The experience then allows you to drag your character around when you exit the elevator on a given floor.

The elevator game was ultimately built into greater Nogginville platform, utilizing a large portion of my logic from the initial prototype.

You can read the associative GDD document for the mini-game here.

I also developed a second mini-game, “Slide Maze,” as a way to test memory in kids, but this one wasn’t picked up for further development.

Big Hearts Activity Books Prototyping: Make From Stickers

Team Size: 1

Timeframe: 3 weeks

Prompt: Develop a prototype in which you “create” your face from stickers to show us how you feel

In the early stages of Big Hearts Activity Books (BHAB) development, around January 2023, a group of four interactive editors were assigned to create different prototypes for different potential activities to be used in BHAB in the future. My activity was “Make From Stickers,” in which you have the option of six different face backgrounds, six different eyes, and six different mouths, to build your face and show us how you feel.

The logic itself was extremely intricate, as it required a series of different linking logic that turn on and off at different points. Additionally, I kept two “versions” of the assets (i.e. faces/eyes/months) stacked together, with one version visible upon introduction of a different category (i.e. faces, eyes, mouths), and another version that becomes visible once your choice has been dragged to the card.

The former version must be dragged to the card, otherwise it snaps back to its original position. The latter version can be dragged anywhere within the card, but if you try to place it outside the card, it snaps back to your most recent position (requiring a position variable to save this position upon each release). When you drag a different eye/mouth to the card, the two versions toggle back-and-forth.

Lastly, a cool quirk of the interaction is that, upon completion of the interaction, the face has programmatic movement that is tied to the different potential emotions that you can build. So, below, you can see that if you build the irreverent-looking “squiggle” face, the face dances around haphazardly to match the face. If you build the unapologetically “happy happy” face, the face rolls around without abandon. If you build a full-on “angry angry” face, the face pulsates before “calming down.” Overall, there are a total of 16 different ending movements that you can see as easter eggs.

As of this writing (October 2023), “Make From Stickers” hasn’t been incorporated into a full-length BHAB episode yet, but be on the lookout for a more polished version of this interaction in the future.

Physics Prototyping

Team Size: 1

Timeframe: 2 weeks

Prompt: Craft interactions showcasing programmatic physics components

In September 2022, physics parameters were added to our in-house programmatic tool, PIE, so several interactive editors crafted some prototypes showcasing the potential of what these “physics components” could do. I developed an interaction (above) in which you throw a a programmatic ball at some blocks, as well as “heavy pong” (below), in which you can play standard pong, but with a catch that the ball has a gravity modifier attached to it (thereby making it “heavy”).

“Heavy Pong” was also later customized to allow you to play it with two players.

Noggin Hackathon: Sleep

Team Size: 5

Timeframe: 2 days

Prompt: Develop a fast-turnaround prototype to promote learning around a daily activity

As part of the “Noggin Hackathon” in September 2021, we were divided into teams of five to develop fast-turnaround prototypes. Our team (Team Santiago) decided to create a prototype to help facilitate sleep, in which you can use the app to craft your pre-sleep routine and then track your progress with your favorite Noggin characters. Afterward, with the app assuming you have gotten into bed, the experience links you to a meditation experience to help you fall asleep.

Horses: Random Number Generation

Team Size: 1

Timeframe: 1 week

Prompt: Develop a prototype involving “horse racing” to showcase random movement generation

In February 2021, the interactive editors on the Noggin team were tasked creating a horse-racing prototype to both simulate random number generation as well as the different ways an object can move (i.e. quadratic movement, linear movement). It was also requested that you “add another horse” after each set of racing until you get to 10. Additionally, at this point, because I added the William Tell Overture as background music overall, I decided to allow you to keep racing until the music stops.

Trace Library

Team Size: 5

Timeframe: 1 week

Prompt: Develop a library of the alphabet utilizing the “trace function”

My earliest contribution at Noggin, in November 2020, was helping to develop the “trace library,” in which the alphabet was divided, work-wise, amidst five interactive editors. The library was later stored in our internal sites as a showcase of the “trace function” in the tool.