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Hello,
my name is Claudio Lira, I'm a control engineer by formation but designing games and toys is the aim of my life. Animodula is an animal making bracelet: one Animodula package with 22 pieces, the Triceratops, is able to represent all the figures obtained in the picture below (the "bestiary", 130 animals) and many others. Animodula lets you build creatures of your imagination and gives you little 3D puzzle to solve: both this things contribute in the development of your life skills, it doesn't matter what your age is.
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Animal making demo:
Story
At the beginning my objective was the making of a polymer clay bracelet that could become an animal once took off, but afterwads I have developed the beads in modules to let them combine in a high number of animals.
After an intermediate wooden prototype I shifted to a 3D printed one, perfectly working both as a toy and a bracelet: the final product is ready to be realized in plastic through injection molding. In addition to this version there is also another one, in steel, 3D printed.
Animodula has been designed to produce many significant combinations in correlation to the number of pieces, as the space on the wrist is limited.
Animodula
I will describe now plastic and steel Animodula. There are 5 shapes of piece. Trapezoids, Triangles and three extremities: Drop, Horn and Nose cone. The trapezoid module's base, in the plastic version, is 26 mm length (~1"), a bit less considering the bevel, while the steel version's one is 20 mm length (0.79"). The hole for the wire has a 2mm diameter. The plastic modules appear as a couple of shells closed on the magnets, while the steel version is a single hollow piece with external magnets.
There are 3 packages: Kitten, Turtle and Triceratops, and they have respectively 8, 14, and 22 pieces. The triceratops is obtained from the Kitten's pieces added to the Turtle's ones.
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The plastic version is available in 6 plain colors and 6 fantasy materials inspired to the natural elements.
Plain colors: Ivory, Lime, Sapphire, Purple, Coral, Orange; Fantasy colors: Lava, Water, Night, Forest, Clouds, Daylight; all this 12 pictures are renderings
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Example of the packaging that I would like to print for the Fantasy colors if the campaign will significantly exceed the strict goal
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In the steel version there are 3 available finishes, natural (the production process leaves a light bronze color), nickel plated and black.
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Considering that the jewel is obtained by 3D printing several customizations are also available (see Perks paragraph)
This photo shows the modules on 1cm-anty-paper.
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[WARNING! The ingestion of one or more magnets is extremely dangerous. Does not matter how old a kid is, if he swallows things avoid Animodula]
[WARNING! Have you got nickel allergy? Avoid Nickel finishing on the jewel]
Animodula is mainly thought to have a plesant looking when it is transported in bracelet configuration and to represent animals and organic shapes when in toy configuration. The high number of relevant shapes that can be made is given by the presence of magnetic joints on every face, and by the union of 60, 120 and 90° angles, that can tile a plane. The 60 and 120° angles are pretty common in nature, for example in the beehive's cells and in the monocotyledons. The magnetic joints are adjustable so the finished creatures keep an high mobility, and are employable as action figures in other games.
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The presence of magnets allows Animodula to cling to metallic walls, such as the computer case or as the fridge. In addition it can interact with small objects such coins, keys, hair claps or paper clips. In this way Animodula can become the source of endless games.
Neotenia ProjectAnimodula is part of a greater project, Neotenia, which includes another dozen subprojects. For the description of some of them I refer you to the Neotenia website. The aim of Neotenia is to empower life skills and promote creativty, love for the research and opposition to the conditioning, through media for young people, toys and games.
My toys and games focus on modularity; in addition to other brand new features of Animodula there are other 4 toys and lots of videogames planned, based on this concept. A good modular system entails a great freedom for the user, which means a great freedom to create. If for some reason a module breaks is sufficient to replace the damaged part, and not the whole system. In consequence of that the lifetime of the product is potentially extremely long. Usually the market is interested in the opposite of that, i.e. to plan the obsolescence of its products, prearranging the breaking in a given period or persuading the customers that a product is old and inadequate.
Even the traditional building sets give their best so as their modules, virtually indistructibles, have a short lifetime, otherwise the company can't sell more of them. To obtain this result they work in two ways: creating pieces even more dedicated and with less potentiality, suitable for few usages, and linking themselves to videogames and movies in style in a limited period.
The media of Neotenia have their focus on the valorization of the individuality and the introspection, on the building of valuable relationships and not on the formation of a numerous group. In addition generally Neotenia's media are not based on contrast and clash. I criticise the media for kids and children that use excessive simplification and stereotypes, cheaper and easier to be handled than complex ideas, but generally under the real range of their recipients: the result is a lack of real contribution to their mental growth.
Why a crowdfunding campaign
Animodula idea has been judged suitable for business angel or venture capitalist consideration, but for these some changes are required to the original plan, and the effectiveness of the project would be compromised. For this reason I preferred to study a crowdfunding campaign.
In order to make Animodula 40 KUSD are strictly required to make the molds, start the production and buy the raw material. Additional funds will be required then to bring Animodula to the traditional market, opening an e-commerce or maybe even to bring it in the physical shops. At the same time with other resources it will be possible to develop other similar products of the Neotenia project.
Perks
The main suggested perk is the triceratops, that include all the pieces required to build the whole bestiary. For plastic Animodula combined shipping is not available because the shipping cost depends directly on the weight; however the tracking always costs 1$ for any number of Animodula packages, and in addition there are sales for groups of 4 and 6 triceratops (Noah's Ark and Alchemy perks). Write me for information about combined shipping for Animodula jewel.
Video Tutorial
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Kitten, Turtle, Triceratops
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Noah's Ark, Fruit Salad, Alchemy![]()
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Kitten, Turtle, Triceratops Jewel![]()
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Animodula's philosophy is adverse to specialization, but where it is possible Neotenia supports the customization. In particular, a jewel can be a celebrative and very personal object, and as it is obtained through 3D printing we can provide some personalization.
Custom extremity, Octuopus, Zebra
45$ Custom Extremity- Introduce a customized shape based on your drawing (complex shapes or engraves
are not allowed) that will replace one or more extremity of a jewel. I'm looking
forward to see your drawings!
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12$ Octopus - Get one additional extremity; thought to apply the customization to new
extremities without replacing the extisting ones. However you can also desire a
weird 2-tailed cat, as my nephew do.
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20$ Zebra - Color change of an arbitrary number of beads in the same jewel package. Ideal to
reproduce animal with special coloration, if for example your partner is
attached to a black and white pet or is obsessed with raccoons. (the available
color still are natural, nickel plated and black)
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How can I help?
- If you like Animodula or Neotenia you can also like Animodula on Facebook :)
- Tell with a comment what animal of the bestiary do you prefer and what important animals are missing
- Share your favorite animal via Pinterest
- Tweet how much do you like Animodula!
- Share a video of the Animodula playlist on YouTube
- If you have an Android device you can download the app ARnimodula, print the pdf tag file, and show to your friends a simulation of Animodula. ARnimodula is a kind of game, to obtain the Triceratops you should play with the tags of kitten and turtle :)
- Other strange ways to make buzz incoming!
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