The joint research of Searls and Tomlinson has been focused upon how puppetry intersects with animation through digital puppetry. Lynn Tomlinson, Colette Searls and a team of programmers at the Imaging Research Center (IRC) are creating a new type of digital puppet, one that can be manipulated on tablets such as the iPad. This builds upon the past research of Searls, Timothy Nohe and the IRC Fellows in the production of The Crystal Egg.