We were recently sent a fantastic project in the shape of a Zing StikBot Movie Set. Specifically, the Farm set that comes flat packed but looked exciting. The children were keen to get started, and I was interested to find out how easy or difficult stop motion animation is to do.
What’s in the Box?
Well, everything is flat-packed except a StikBot character and a compartment filled with his hat, and some work tools. There is a sheet of stickers that you can use with your StikBot character to change its outfit.
The largest item is the base board, which is printed with a road, flower beds etc. And then there is a pile of boards with ‘ready to pop out’ sections. Last, but not least, there’s an instruction booklet.
Building the Movie Set
This is no 5 minutes activity. It probably took over an hour from start to finish, although we kept walking away and going back to it. By following the step by step instructions, and popping out the correctly numbered pieces, you’ll make a tractor, farm pick up truck, wheelbarrow, farm barn/house, picnic furniture, raised vegetable beds along with the veggies, fencing and trees. When everything is built, it’s an impressive set.
Once you’ve got your movie set built, you will need to start thinking about storylines, and how to make animations with the set.
Zing StikBot Studio app
To make stop-motion animations you will need to download the StikBot Studio app from either the App Store or Google play.
Once downloaded, set up your camera on a small tripod. Open the StikBot App and allow access to the movie camera. Make up your first scene and press the red face icon to record the scene. You then make adjustments to the figures for the next scene. The previous scene will be seen as a ghost image so you can check the new movement i.e., it is not too far. Then when happy, press the red face again to record the next scene. And on you go. The ghost image will always show the previous scene and you can check how far to move your characters. The tripod and camera should always stay still. Easy Peasy lemon squeezy!
Millie-Mae downloaded the app to her phone, and without any hesitation started to put together a short video ‘story’ for me. She told me that it would have been a lot better if she had a tripod to hold her phone steady. But I think she did a really good job. Take a look, what do you think?
Our Thoughts
What we like about StikBot is that it’s also an online community. Daily content is added to their #StikBot Central YouTube page and you can share your own creations using the #Stikbot hashtag. What’s more, the options are endless as there’s so many different movie sets that you can build (including Space and Pirates). There’s even a green screen where you can add background via the app!
With our children being brought up to embrace technology, StikBots are a brilliant cross-over from traditional play, and the futuristic world of animation. Building the Movie Set certainly requires good hand/eye coordination as it’s quite technical and tricky in places. And there’s unlimited scope for their imagination. Using the simple app, they can bring their play to life – and they are really proud of the results. We rate this StikBot Farm Movie Set 10 out of 10.
