Camille Manet

Camille Manet grew up in France as a fan of Star Wars and Obi-Wan Kenobi was her favorite character as a kid and he still is today. Manet loved watching the original trilogy on home video and she watched the prequels in the movie theater as a child. She and her friends liked to play Star Wars on a playground. Manet has no professional background, but she still loves cinema and Star Wars. The sequel trilogy awakened her interest in the franchise and she realized that she subconsciously thought of a drawing of a droid that could be helpful in her daily life, leading into her eagerness to join the contest from Lucasfilm's Star Wars: Force For Change initiative and FIRST, whose goal is to inspire innovators in STEM and creative arts. The contest was announced in October, 2019.

Manet then started to design the droid KP-1 whose name is short for "Knave Puff." During the design phase, she realized that coming up with something original that fit the Star Wars aesthetic would be key. Manet wanted to find a balance between the long tradition of droids people are familiar with and something entirely new. She aimed to create a concept that showed innovation because she felt the attention granted to details and specificity binded the cinematic universe together. Manet struggled to come up with the basic shape before coming up with the persona. The droid's cone head was a new idea and made KP-1's silhouette identifiable, however the classic astromech dome grounded the design in Star Wars. Manet had the wheel as a design starting point and then thought of putting it horizontally, and she thought that retractable arms could be on the wheel. Manet added pink body and red accents because she liked the color combination. She wanted to differentiate KP-1 from famous droids, so she purposely avoided blue, gold, and orange because those colors are associated with R2-D2, C-3PO, and BB-8, respectively. The final sketch included detailed notes on the droid's physical dimensions and his array of tools. Manet also wrote an essay about KP-1.

The droid's playful yet temperamental demeanor was inspired by famous Star Wars droids. Manet imagined her droid expressing all emotions and sums up KP-1's character as "salty." Manet wanted the name to reflect the droid's character: "clever and insightful, always a step ahead, a dash of mischievousness, and as you can't predict where a breath of fresh air will blow, a tad bit unpredictable; a surprise, for sure, but a welcome one." The idea was also KP-1 was salty at times, but people would always be happy to have him by their side." She also wanted KP-1 to very loyal and easily offended, but not for long, and he will always be determined to carry out his mission.

The contest winners were chosen by several judges including Star Wars creature and special make-up effects supervisor Neal Scanlan; Lucasfilm vice president, creative producer John Swartz; Lucasfilm senior creative executive Pablo Hidalgo; celebrity Star Wars fan and STEM advocate Mayim Bialik; and Dean Kamen, the founder of FIRST. On November 21, 2021, Manet received an Email telling her she'd been named the grand prize winner. She was very happy and thought it was very surreal. Manet couldn't tell anyone about winning the contest, but she told her mom the news. During production of the Obi-Wan Kenobi television series, Manet received some updates from Lucasfilm discussing the development of her droid. She also met virtually with Lucasfilm art director Doug Chiang who put some finishing touches on KP-1 for filming. Lucasfilm also showed Manet behind-the-scenes photos and videos of the making of KP-1, including painting, 3D-printing, and the final build in the creature shop. The final form's colors ended up being green and tan, but the overall appearance ended up being almost exact to Manet's vision. When she saw the final product, she felt joyful and moving and like she was parting ways with the droid. Chiang also showed a clip of KP-1 from the fifth episode and Manet said it was very moving.