A small spatial color-play tool created for children.
Waraiguma Bobin Maker was created during the long weekend of 2 June 2026 by Francesco Perchiazzi as a personal contribution to Il Mare come Artigiano, an educational workshop for children held at the Naples Fashion Museum.
The workshop invited six-year-old children to explore colors, patterns, weaving, imagination, and textile culture through playful experimentation inspired by the educational philosophy of Bruno Munari.
While preparing support activities for the workshop, a simple question emerged:
How can a child explore colors through a digital object without first having to learn software?
Bobin Maker is an attempt to answer that question.
Rather than reproducing a professional design tool, the project aims to create an immediate relationship between gesture, color, and imagination. Children can paint a yarn bobbin, create simple palettes, save their favorite combinations, and observe how colors behave on a three-dimensional object.
The experience is intentionally lightweight. There are no accounts, no databases, no complex workflows, and no learning curve.
Just colors, experimentation, and curiosity.
This repository is not the result of a commercial commission.
It was developed as a personal weekend project by Francesco Perchiazzi, designer, researcher, and adjunct professor of Graphic Design at the University of Naples Federico II.
The initial concept was developed through rapid prototyping and Vibe Coding methodologies, using AI-assisted development tools and continuous experimentation.
Part of the interaction design was informally validated with Francesco’s daughter Celeste, whose reactions helped identify which interactions felt natural, understandable, and engaging for young children.
For this reason, the project should be viewed more as a design experiment than as a software product.
It is a small exploration of how digital tools can support creativity, perception, and learning in early childhood.
Bobin Maker was not conceived as a product.
It was designed for a specific situation: a few days, a museum, a textile workshop, and a group of children moving between observation, drawing, color, digital exploration and physical making.
AI-assisted development made it possible for a single designer to create a working digital artifact at a scale and speed that would previously have made bespoke software difficult to justify for such a small educational event.
This does not eliminate the need for software engineering. Bobin Maker is deliberately not production software, nor does it attempt to replace the robustness, maintainability and scalability that engineering brings to digital products.
Instead, it explores another possibility: what Clay Shirky, in a 2004 essay, called situated software — software “designed in and for a particular social situation or context,“ rather than for a generic set of users.
The AI provided implementation leverage; the design agency remained human: understanding the context, choosing the metaphor, defining what should and should not exist, observing how children appropriated the tool, and deciding what those observations meant.
The original interaction focused on exploring colors through a three-dimensional yarn bobbin and collecting personal palettes.
The children quickly found another purpose.
After discovering that their bobbins could be placed in the museum garden through augmented reality, they began moving them through space, changing their scale, walking with them and taking photographs. What had been designed as a color-exploration tool spontaneously became a form of spatial play.
The observation can be read through a Montessori-informed perspective: rather than prescribing the final activity, the digital environment offered possibilities that children could discover and appropriate autonomously. The intended output — a palette — became less important than the act of exploration itself.
We designed a tool for composing colors.
The children turned it into a tool for composing experiences.
For this project, that became the most meaningful outcome.
The project follows five simple principles:
A child should understand the interface without instructions.
Exploration comes before productivity.
The bobbin is not an abstract UI element. It is a familiar object connected to textile culture.
Colors are applied to a three-dimensional object rather than a flat swatch. The object becomes a cognitive bridge between imagination and materiality.
No login. No onboarding. No configuration. No account creation.
This project was originally created to support:
- color recognition
- palette creation
- visual experimentation
- pattern thinking
- textile education
- creative confidence
The software does not attempt to teach design. Instead, it creates conditions for children to discover design principles through play.
- 3D bobbin preview with immediate visual feedback
- Two UI modes: Kids / Pro
- Built-in palettes (Kids + Wave)
- Personal palette saved locally (up to 8 saved bobbins,
localStoragekey:waraiguma_mypal) - PNG export (single bobbin or saved palette grid)
- USDZ export for AR on iPhone/iPad (with embedded procedural textures)
- 4 UI languages (IT / EN / FR / JA)
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Caption convention for all UI screenshots above: Waraiguma · Bobin Maker — application UI screenshots. The interface language shown here is English (default, EN); users can also switch to IT/FR/JA via the top language selector.
Photographs of the workshop Il Mare come Artigiano at the Naples Fashion Museum, June 2026. Children of the L’Orsa Maggiore co-operative (Rione Traiano, Naples) working hands-on with iPad Pros, hand-loom weaving, and colour exploration inspired by Bruno Munari.
Privacy note: all photographs intentionally frame details of hands and materials; no faces are shown.
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| © 2026 Marco Bernardini — children’s hands interacting with Waraiguma Bobin Maker on iPad Pro, Museo della Moda Napoli · Il Mare come Artigiano, June 2026 | © 2026 Marco Bernardini — close-up detail of children’s hands on iPad Pro, Museo della Moda Napoli · Il Mare come Artigiano, June 2026 |
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| © 2026 Marco Bernardini — children’s hands selecting colours from Bobin Maker on iPad Pro, Museo della Moda Napoli · Il Mare come Artigiano, June 2026 | © 2026 Marco Bernardini — close-up of iPad Pro screen and children’s hands, Museo della Moda Napoli · Il Mare come Artigiano, June 2026 |
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| © 2026 Marco Bernardini — children’s hands working with Waraiguma Bobin Maker, Museo della Moda Napoli · Il Mare come Artigiano, June 2026 | © 2026 Marco Bernardini — detail of iPad Pro showing colour palette, Museo della Moda Napoli · Il Mare come Artigiano, June 2026 |
- XR demo (iPhone): waraiguma_xr_demo_iphone_15_pro.mp4
- Example palette PNG: waraiguma_palette.png
- Example USDZ: waraiguma_bobbin.usdz
MUSEO DELLA MODA NAPOLI
Il Mare come Artigiano
8 June 2026 — 12 June 2026
Curated by Paola Maddaluno
Promoted by the Comune di Napoli
In collaboration with L’Orsa Maggiore Cooperativa Sociale E.T.S.
With the support of the Assessorato alle Politiche Sociali
With the participation of Pasquale Ferraioli and Michele Iodice
Photo reportage by Marco Bernardini
With the support of Laura Dell’Acqua and Francesco Perchiazzi
In collaboration with the staff of L’Orsa Maggiore and of the Museo della Moda di Napoli
Special thanks to Apple Developer Academy Area Marina Protetta Parco Sommerso di Gaiola
- Vogue Italia — Il Mare come Artigiano è l’hub creativo del Museo della Moda di Napoli dedicato ai bambini (e al futuro dell’artigianato italiano) — vogue.it
- Il Mattino — «Il Mare come Artigiano», il workshop per bambini al Museo della Moda di Napoli — ilmattino.it
- ANSA Campania — Al Museo della Moda di Napoli progetto contro la povertà educativa — ansa.it
This app is a static web page with no build step.
From apps/bobinmaker:
python3 -m http.server 8080Then open http://localhost:8080/.
- index.html: the application (HTML/CSS/JS)
- vendor/three.r155.min.js: local Three.js build (r155)
- vendor/tabler-icons-webfont/: local Tabler Icons webfont (CSS + fonts, MIT)
- fonts/: local Poppins subset for offline setups (OFL)
- img/The_Great_Wave_off_Kanagawa.jpg: Wave image local asset
- screenshots/: README images
- video/: demo video(s)
- examples/: example export files (PNG / USDZ)
- media/: workshop photo reportage (© Marco Bernardini)
- Waraiguma · Il Mare come Artigiano — Naples Fashion Museum — 9–12 June 2026 — Lab by Paola Maddaluno
- About the project: “The Sea as Craftsman” is a creative workshop for children promoted by the City of Naples, exploring how fabrics are conceived and made. Six-year-olds draw on tablets and weave on hand looms, inspired by Bruno Munari’s lessons.
- Promoted by: City of Naples — Chiara Marciani
- Co-operative: L’Orsa Maggiore — Francesca D’Onofrio
- Venue: Naples Fashion Museum
- Curated by: Paola Maddaluno
- Tech: Vimar 1991 — Chanel Group
- Apple Developer Academy — Francesco Perchiazzi, Senior Mentor Spatial Design
- Workshop photographs: Marco Bernardini
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Wave image source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Great_Wave_off_Kanagawa.jpg
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Per the Wikimedia Commons file page, this is described as PD-Art / Public Domain Mark 1.0 (with jurisdiction notes). Refer to the page for the authoritative terms.
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Workshop photo reportage: 6 photographs in
./media/, Copyright © 2026 Marco Bernardini. Used with permission. All rights reserved. Not covered by the project’s MIT license. These photographs intentionally frame only hands, materials, and iPad screens; no children’s faces are shown.
