Kathputli - where stories come alive!

• Pick a story type, age, and language • AI generates a brand-new story in real time, so every adventure is unique • It understands who’s on stage and instantly adapts when new characters join • Children use simple hand gestures to interact with the puppets and influence what happens next • Every puppet has its own voice, personality, expressions, and emotions • Stories end with a gentle moral, making them engaging, interactive, and meaningful 🟩 The Problem

We live in a digital era where children have access to more stories than ever before. But most digital storytelling is still passive, children tap a screen, sit back, and consume the same pre-written experience as everyone else.There’s little room for imagination, interaction, or ownership.

The story doesn’t know who they are, what language they speak, what they’re curious about, or what choices they want to make. And yet, every child imagines differently. We felt storytelling should be just as personal.

🟩 Our Solution

Inspired by Rajasthan’s traditional Kathputli puppet theatre, we built Kathputli, an AI-powered storytelling experience where children don’t just watch a story unfold, they help create it. Instead of handing a child another video, we hand them the strings.

🟩 Built With

🟩 What We’ll Remember Most

This isn't a polished final product, it's the outcome of a few intense days of experimenting, rebuilding, refining prompts, and learning entirely new tools as we went.

Figma Make alone took us 170+ iterations to get the feel right. And with limited Weave credits, we often had just one shot to get a screen or a puppet right, which made every prompt count.

As a two-person team (@Me and @Muskan), our different skill sets complemented each other surprisingly well. One idea sparked another, prototypes evolved by the hour, and every iteration made the experience a little more magical.

🟩 Where we'd take it next

🟩 We didn’t just build with AI.

We learned how to design with it, collaborate with it, and tell better stories because of it.

And if there’s one thing we hope people take away from Kathputli, it’s this: In a world built for endless consumption, maybe the most meaningful stories are the ones children get to shape themselves. Kathputli, where stories come alive.

🔗 Live Demo: https://kathputli.figma.site/ 🧩 Figma Community File: https://www.figma.com/community/file/1649568219068252685 ▶️ Social media post URL: https://x.com/shivam619tiwari/status/2067745369883369502

Great work!!

Here's my submission for #ConfigMakeathon 

'Budding' teaches kids storytelling. They author fun little storybooks, thanks to guidance specific to their unique stories. 

Testing has been so fun! ☺️ Budding draws their quirky stories into pictures that kids can't wait to see. It even narrates their books out loud in goofy voices 🙃

Besides fun, I've noticed kids articulate so much better with Budding. They polish thoughts, grapple with figments, and even work through emotions to bring a better story to life. More than other activities, I see kids ponder and push for finer ideas. I'm delighted to see this develop their creative muscle so uniquely 🫶

Check it out at: budding.figma.site

Posted this on my socials

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DZvzBscuzEw/?igsh=MWc0d2FhMGhoMjZ5cg==

X: https://x.com/AliKapadia/status/2067759733830795571

Community link: https://www.figma.com/community/file/1649581616807790172/budding-demo

Novel use: a unique processes needed for this project was the bulk generation of helpful yet consistent helper images. Each storytelling topic needed coherent ideas and guidance for the little authors. With almost 50 topics, this can quickly become very messy. Thanks to Figma Weave’s 'text iterators', I was able to do this right, and super clean! - I'll post a video for that here as well.

Here's a demo book I made with Budding! 🎩 Turn the sound On 🔊