The first stage in the design process is to gather information about your intended user, and to get information directly from them about the user experience. Rather than simply interview them about their desires and issues, it is better to observe them interacting with the product in its typical environment. This provides a much more realistic test for your observations.

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"Children need to be immersed in engaging applications of science and technology, because physically

interacting with things that elude a child’s understanding encourages them to be more inquisitive."

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From this initial Point of View statement, we began to narrow down our possible automaton ideas. At this stage, we were deciding between a jungle theme, in which animals would move around, a band theme, where a band would sit on top of the walker and play music with semi-realistic instruments, and the dragon theme, which is what we eventually decided to pursue.

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Wing Mechanism: At this very early stage in the design process, the central ideas surrounding the wing mechanism begin to take shape. From the How Might We questions constructed, we begin to see a common theme emerge of the need for realistic movement. We have discovered from research and our own experiences that for children to enjoy the toys they play with, they need to be able to have a believable connection to the toy. This will allow their imagination to run wild and allow them to come up with their own stories to give the toy. For us, this meant a need to mimic realistic wing movement for our automaton.