Risky outdoor play for Bomb
An outdoor play intervention for highly Energetic children
Fewer and fewer children enjoy outdoor play now with the advent of modern technology. While it is easy to put all of the blame on iPads and devices, it is also important to consider the possibility that outdoor play equipment is not designed for all types of children. One category of such children are highly energetic and chaotic children. Let's call this archetype, Bomb. Bomb is very competitive and do not like being told 'no'. They tend to also be a little destructive and very active. Play equipement does not usually cater to this energy and can quickly become boring or get destroyed. To tackle this, we propose using the concept of risky play to stimulate and keep Bomb entertained by designing an active, dynamic outdoor play equipment.
The character ‘Bomb’ is proposed in the design framework based on research into the personalities of children (8 to 11 y.o.) who don’t play outdoors.
Bomb is a loud and lively kid, always full of excitement and a strong desire to play. They thrive in physically active play, as it gives them the opportunity to release their boundless energy. They tend to be quite competitive and like to test their own and others’ limits. They really hate being told "no", and preventing them from releasing their energy through play can make them act rude or aggressive toward others, even their peers. Although they often go outdoors to play, the lack of stimulating experiences for their age quickly leads them to boredom, which brings them to start bothering other children.
Who is Bomb?
What is Risky Play?
Risky play is defined as thrilling and exciting forms of physical play that involve uncertainty and a risk of physical injury. Risky play has been shown to mirror exposure theory, broaden emotion regulation, and serve anti-phobic functions. Fear is divided into functional fear and non-functional anxiety, and risky play is a mechanism to reduce this non-functional anxiety as the child matures. Risky play also allows children to assume social roles and explore complex emotional states in a safe and less consequential setting. Role play, where children wage wars or raise children, could function as a practice arena for emotion regulation.
However, parents and teachers tend to intervene and try to regulate risky play due to the possibility of physical injury, social controversies, or taboos related to play. Nevertheless, engagement with these situations actually allows children to interpret signals better and improve children’s knowledge and competence. Children are able to assess risks and apply this competence to make decisions that go beyond play activities.
Risky Play and Bomb?
Children like Bomb take a lot of comfort in being the best in the room, they feel safe when they win and have a fear of losing. We want to use Risky play to allow Bomb to step out of their comfort zone, experience a feeling that is unfamiliar to them, experience not being able to be the most powerful.
The Vision
“We want to create an outdoor play artefact that challenges highly energetic and competitive children like Bomb. We believe there might be untapped fears related to the idea of ‘losing’, leading to a potential inferiority complex and an aversion for risks. We would like to tackle this through the design of an outdoor artefact that stimulates ‘risky play’ in a safe play environment.”
THE VALUE
We want to design something that encourages child development by getting children out of their comfort zone while playing outside.
Ideation and Concept directions
Initial ideas on risky play involved thinking about heights and many moving components. We considered making use of public spaces that children would already be in however some of the ideas were disregarded since they would not be attractive enough to captivate children like Bomb. Some other ideas involved construction play with a Bomb element of destruction. However, this did not seem ideal for a public play space where children other than Bomb play as well. Some other ideas involved children being in zorbing balls but this did not seem ideal as children would have to wait for a long time for everyone to be ready and it could potentially be very unsafe. We also dove a little into loose part play and building a path to play on. The main points of decision making however came from flow theory. While some ideas bordered too closely towards anxiety, some ideas were discarded because they could be easily perfected and then might border on boredom. Another issue with play that could be perfected was that it reintroduced the competitive element that we wanted to specifically avoid to avoid Bomb taking on a competitive stance yet again.
How?
Chosen concept direction
The chosen concept direction consisted of a path of obstacle- tiles that changed everytime someone stood on it. Children could go on the path and high five a hand at the end of the course.
Progression of ideas
On iterating further on the concept with the influence of the quality of play lenses and child types, we noticed that the concept was limited to the character of the achiever. While we see Bomb as an active child and we wanted to focus on the top half of the personality matrix, we still wanted to make the concept accessible to actors. For this, we introduced the element of fantasy to the play. With initial thoughts on natural disasters, we eventually shifted to different settings. This was because natural disasters seemed a little hard to percieve for a child. We also wanted to introduce an element of freedom of play, having a constricted path was unlike Bomb's character. We wanted to ensure that Bomb could play in anyway they wanted. Introducing a circular design with a central safezone and a slide allowed this freedom.
Final Concept
The Chaos themed Maze
Named specifically because of its chaotic and non-ordered nature, this play artefact we believe would appeal to the ‘Bomb’ inside a child by being not only highly unpredictable but also just the right amount of risky.
Additionally, providing chaotic themes to a rather realistic and cognitive play would also bring out the dreamer inside children. These themes are not restrictive, they could be literally anything, but for the sake of kids like Bomb, building a slightly ‘dangerous’ narrative might stimulate more excitement.
Since winning is not primary, there is no clear end goal, and Bomb can have as many tries as they want. However, there are certain points of the play that signify some sort of optimism or safety amidst all the chaos. This is done to keep up the flow of good and bad things within a single game so that there is constant motivation for Bomb.
The safe zone no longer means a way out but is rather a temporary rest spot. After a certain time, a hand pats everyone on the head symbolizing their rest is over. This was an addition we made on noticing that the children did not value going to the safe-zone.
Children were using it as a temporary stop before they continued playing. We even experimented a scenario with a timer on how long they could stay at the safe zone and they enjoyed the thrill more. It also reinforces the idea of play without a goal or ‘winning'.
The final design is a development on the concept presented at the evaluation. It consists of sectors with different locations where the children could imagine the play to be. They can choose to follow a single story-line or switch between them. They could also make up their own as they went along. Each sector consists of a set of dynamic tiles that change everytime someone stands on it.
Final Design
Design Evaluation
The purpose of the evaluation session is to assess the level of engagement and interest it generates in children who have a lot of energy, to investigate whether and which certain aspects of the concept can hold their attention and enthusiasm and encourage them to play more often and to assess the impact of this game on children who are naturally competitive and always want to win. For the evaluation session, we decided to choose 1 theme to test in both sessions: the volcano.
The Setup
The Test
In our original concept, the idea was that the tiles would make a different movement every time a child steps on it, such as moving up and down, becoming jelly-like, or acting as a seesaw. Although we were unable to implement this in the test setup, we explained the original concept to the children after they filled in an evaluation form.
“I really like that design, because I really like how you don't know. That's the exciting part. Because you don't know if it's gonna go up, down. It is really fun, I feel like I will, like [name of another kid] said, I will also be the first one to try it out."
The Result
The majority of children indicated that there is no winner, and even the children we identified as resembling Bomb answered no. When asked if there is more than one winner in this game, 8 out of 10 children answered yes, explaining that everyone is a winner or that the play is just to have fun. The 2 children who answered no gave the explanation that there is no winner or also said it is just for fun to play.No child experienced this game as competitive.
Although, after repeatedly asking and emphasizing that they could give their honest opinion, it turned out that the game as it was played now, without changing behavior of the tiles after each step, was already exciting enough.
Additionally, during the play the Safety Zone served as an empty spot that was considered a rest area, but also had potential to continue the game in a different way as the children spent no more than a few seconds there.
It is clear that they do not want to stop playing, as shown by the evaluation forms where 8/10 children indicated that they wanted to play this more often.