Death of the Dodgeball: Recess Equipment 2.0
August 20, 2010
Remember when a rubber ball was enough to play with before school, during recess and after school – every day? The nature of recess is changing. From jump ropes to hacky sacks to heart monitors, what children use on the playground is vastly different than when I was a kid.
The change in how children interact with playgrounds poses new challenges for playground designers and manufacturers. While we haven’t been able to recreate something as pure and simple as the rubber ball, we have been able to simple modifications to traditional recess equipment in order to make the playground experience more unique, more challenging and more rewarding.
Here are my top five favorite alterations to traditional playground equipment.
The 650 Degree Whirl Slide
It’s a traditional slide with a twist, well, one and three quarters to be exact. Growing up, we had a single, vertical slide on the playground. It was steel, it was straight and there was always a line to use it. The 650 Degree Whirl Slide still draws a crowd and why shouldn’t it? By adding a few twists and turns, we’ve been able to extend the ride.
The Tarzan Maze
Because monkey bars are sooo unidirectional, we developed the Tarzan Maze. This massive structure provides so many more options. In addition, several children can interact on this play component at the same time. Stepping stones in the middle of each trek allow children to rest or change direction. This might be the greatest advance in monkey bar technology.
The Hip Swiveller
This innovation really raises the beam. I mean beam. The Hip Swiveller combines a bridge, a balance beam and an obstacle course in to a single playground component. Guard rails keep the beam safe, much safer than the balance beams I used as a kid. Transforming the Hip Swiveller into a bridge crossing means kids will use it if they want to get from point A to point B in the most efficient manner possible. It’s a great spin a few classic elements that adds some excitement to the playground.
Double Pommel Walk
This is another variation of the bridge that I really enjoy. The Double Pommel Walk consists of two rows of stepping stones chained to the ground below and a support beam above. As the child begins to traverse the structure, the stones shift. The change in footing also separates the bridge requiring a little caution, a lot of balance and creates even more fun as they cross.
The Rock Tunnel Climber
There was a time when anyone wanting to climb onto the play structure he or she had three options. Ladders were boring, but not as boring as steps. Then there was the fireman’s pole, but those were only for the really excellent climbers. While those things still exist in our industry, we are advancing in how we develop climbing structures. One good example is the Rock Tunnel Climber. This play component is set up like giant, jagged steps. Underneath is a small opening that can be crawled under – a perfect escape route for a game of tag.
Innovations in how we improve recess equipment continue everyday. The greater the challenge to provide fun, the more pleasure we get developing exciting new twists on the classics. And hopefully, we’ll be able these play components become classics so that one day we can totally modify and improve them. Or maybe, we’ll get dodgeballs back into the mix. Until then, we’ll keep advancing, keep creating and keep the focus on fitness fun.
Playground Equipment for Schools: How Backyard Playgrounds Differ
July 16, 2010
It’s seems obvious that backyard playground sets differ from playground equipment for schools, but if you take a closer look, you’ll notice more differences than just size. Here are five key differences between backyard varieties and School Daz, Inc. school playground equipment.
Swings
Look at any School Daz, Inc. playground and you won’t see swings. At home, swings don’t pose a safety risk like they do in a school setting. Swings are a major liability when placed in elementary school settings. First, the child on the swing is not strapped in. There is no way to protect a child from falling off or being thrown from the structure. Second, those walking around the swings are one misstep from a kick to the head. Most backyard models keep the swings much lower to the ground to reduce fall heights. Also, fewer children around the backyard play structure minimizes the chance for a passerby to be injured.
Wood
Several big box home improvement stores still sell wooden playgrounds. For the do-it-yourself parent, wood serves as an excellent material for home use. Wood is easy to work with because it’s predictable, durable and uniform. For a school, wood is not a suitable building material for playgrounds. Splinters and the lack of interchangeable parts make maintaining a wooden playground a daunting tasks. Moreover, regulatory safe bodies like IPEMA continue to find wood treatments that contain potentially hazardous materials. Plastics and molded rubber are much safer, and therefore, the only option when building playgrounds for schools.
Line of Sight
Most backyard play structures look like a small, vertical fort with a slide on top of a platform. In several cases, the space underneath the platform is closed off or shielded on two or more of the sides. This is great for kids who want to have a special place in the backyard. It is not safe for a school environment. Without a clear and direct line of sight, playground supervisors cannot sufficiently monitor the children. School Daz, Inc. playground equipment keep the spaces as open as possible, allowing supervisors to shift around the playground area and maintain a close watch of the children they are supervising.
Softfall Materials
When I was a kid, playgrounds were steel beams driven into concrete. At home, grass stains from falling were a welcome reprieve from the bits of rubble that got lodged in my knees. To this day, grass still offers a nice, natural cushion for backyard playgrounds. However, elementary school playgrounds typically have taller structures, meaning the grassy ground may break more than a fall.
A Full Spectrum of Physical Development
School Daz, Inc. carefully constructs playgrounds that address the key elements of physical fitness in developing youth. Balance, cardiovascular health, dexterity, hand-eye coordination and large muscle group development are each addressed by certain playground components. Backyard playgrounds do a fair job of working a few of these important development areas, but few maximize each area like playground equipment for schools can. A lot of this has to do with the sheer number of playground components in an elementary school playground, but school playground companies like School Daz, Inc. make sure each playground design features and highlights these physical fitness elements.
What’s important to remember when considering building a new playground for your local elementary school is that there are companies, like School Daz, Inc., that specialize in the design, financing and installation of playground equipment for schools. The expertise in this field goes a long way to insure the safest and most rewarding experience for your children.
Kids Playgrounds are an Oasis for Safety and Well Being
July 16, 2010
City streets are unsatisfactory playgrounds for children because of the danger, because most good games are against the law, because they are too hot in summer, and because in crowded sections of the city they are apt to be schools of crime. Neither do small back yards nor ornamental grass plots meet the needs of any but the very small children. Older children who would play vigorous games must have places especially set aside for them; and, since play is a fundamental need, playgrounds should be provided for every child as much as schools. This means that they must be distributed over the cities in such a way as to be within walking distance of every boy and girl, as most children can not afford to pay carfare – Theodore Roosevelt, 1907.
Riding the petticoat tails of the suffrage movement, kids playgrounds were built to give children a safe place to play. Before playgrounds were ordered built in the 1900s, most children played in the middle of the street or in alleys – alleys of dense and often violent immigrant neighborhoods.
A century later, kids playgrounds still protect children. The external threats of overcrowded and disease ridden alleys or untamed traffic may have diminished, but there is an even greater internal threat that kids playgrounds fend off – isolation. Advances in video game technology and the proliferation of entertainment options easily lure children indoors to sit alone in front of a screen. Greater demands for high standardized test scores remove recess from the curriculum and force children to silently sit in a desk for the full school day. Throw in a sedentary lifestyle combined with a poor diet and you could argue the internal threats of today could have a more wide-reaching effect than those of yesteryear.
Kids playgrounds offer an escape from the isolation. Imagination breaks free from the confines of two-dimensional game play. Perspectives come from experiences rather than rhetoric and repetition. Social interaction happens with eye contact and speech instead of keyboards. All these benefits coexist among the dynamic chaos of physical play.
While some political officials may not understand the positive impact of playgrounds, school officials do. Here are some quick things schools can do to make turn a playground from a meeting place to a haven for kids.
- Choose a design that focuses on open space with lots of play events (an industry term meaning things for kids to interact with). Space encourages running from new experience to new experience while a variety of play events keeps the play experience fresh every time.
- Focus on fitness. As playground design changed over the decades, many schools found success with playgrounds that added creative elements. The shift in focus today leans towards physical fitness. By offering play events such as bridges and climbers, you can combine the creative aspects of playgrounds with healthy and challenging equipment.
- Build with safe materials. At the very least any manufacturer of your playground materials should be a member of the International Play Equipment Manufacturer’s Association (IPEMA). This includes the plastic of the individual play components and softfall materials.
It’s been 100 years since Teddy Roosevelt stated the importance of playgrounds. In that time, playgrounds have changed, but kids have not. Make sure you school or kids playgrounds provide the same retreat. If your school could use a new playground, contact School Daz, Inc. today and let’s build fun for our future generation.
Designing Playgrounds for Kids Not Child’s Play
June 25, 2010
Designing a playground for kids requires the same considerations as any other architectural structure – a fact often overlooked by individuals dreaming up playground ideas. Let’s explore a few factors which makes designing school playgrounds for kids unique, challenging and highly rewarding.
Space
Just like residential or commercial lots, every playground occupies a predetermined space. The space often limits or caters to specific playground components. One of my favorite playground components is the Tarzan maze. This playground components provides children several swinging options which creates a new play experience each time and encourages repetitive use. For all of its benefits, the Tarzan maze takes up a large chunk of playground real estate. Not only is the structure 8′ × 8′, but it requires a larger boundary area to accommodate for swinging children.
Open space offers an array of options for playground design. At School Daz, Inc. we value open space for its physical fitness traits. Just as musicians use silence to flow between notes or artists use white space to draw the eye to certain parts of a painting, open space gives the playground fluidity and directs students to different playground components within the structure. By elongating the distance between elements, children are required to travel further to reach the next component. For children, that means running from place to place. This running from component to component builds cardiovascular endurance.
Maximizing fun by utilizing the space poses a challenge for any designer, but it also enables designers to be imaginative in how he or she incorporates the landscape, boundaries and open area into the playground design.
Safety
Playgrounds for kids have gotten much safer over the decades. Much of the increased playground safety comes from advances in building materials – no more steel poles embedded in concrete or sliver-giving ladders and swings. Design achieves a higher safety standards in a few ways.
Line of sight hold significant weight in creating a playground design. Supervision on the playground reduces the chances a child will get hurt by roughhousing or by not using the equipment properly. School Daz, Inc. designs playgrounds with multiple vantage points and lines of sight. A trained playground supervisor knows to move throughout the playground area, but increasing the line of sight and opening the space allows supervisors to view several areas at once.
Also, some playground components just aren’t safe. Tube slides or other obstructive components are not recommended because concealment blocks the line of sight. Also, at School Daz, Inc., we don’t generally install swings. This comes as a shock to most people since swings are one of the first things people think about when making a playground. But considering the height a child could fall from, the inability to restrain a child on a swing and the reckless nature in which people use the equipment (remember the underdog?!), swings simply pose too much risk for injury.
Fun
A boring playground offers as much practicality as an ice cream parlor in Antarctica. Playgrounds for kids must be designed with children in mind. Master Designer, Joe Deutsch, spent years teaching physical education to elementary children and has three of his own. Designing with fun in mind sets playground design apart from the analytical part of most architecture. The vivid imagination of children means a platform will be a watchtower today and a fire station tomorrow. Exploring the flexibility of playground layouts means providing children a place to let their imaginations run wild.
From the technical details and safety provisions to the fitness considerations and creative properties, School Daz, Inc. designs playgrounds for kids with kids’ best interests in mind. Contact us to discuss our design philosophy or better yet, see it in action by completing our design brief.
