The microcontroller-driven stage allows anyone to quickly create a piece of miniature theater using handcrafted puppets and an impressive selection of buttons, knobs and switches -- all lovingly handcrafted out of wood on this prototype.
The old series used a technique called "supermarionation", using fine wires to move the puppets, but the new series will use computer-generated characters.
The control panel can move the actors using two motorized carts, cue lighting, playback voice recordings and even activate special electronics embedded in the puppets, such as LED eyes in the demo video after the break.