Outcome

Intention

Polly the playful playground is the playground that comes to life when children play with it. As more children interact with Polly, it gets happier and expresses itself by lighting up the entire playground. This project is meant to encourage children to play with each other. Polly’s main attraction is a path that circles the playground and lights up a path when stepped on. As more and more children interact with it, the entire path begins to light up with joy. In order to measure children’s interactions, an indicator consisting of a cartoon face was also made and connected to the playground, so that it can be placed anywhere. As more children play with Polly and with each other, the face gets happier. 

Community

Our Project focuses on the children’s playground at CMU. Although the playground is meant to allow children to play with each other and promote movement, many children were found to play alone and remain within one area for long periods of time. We decided to target the need for bringing children together and creating more movement around the playground.

We also want to create a more playful and interactive atmosphere around what children currently enjoy by having this environment respond and react to children based on how they use it. That way, the playground itself comes to life. 

Inspiration and Context

We were inspired by precedents that were playful, magical, and eye-catching. We wanted our design to exhibit those three features to attract children to our playground. There were three references that stood out to us as we were ideating and inspired our design:

1. Twinkly lights [1]

An installation that uses lights to lure people to a certain direction and change their behavior.

2. Hopscotch for Geniuses [2]

A playful and interactive take on hopscotch, which encourages children to learn about shapes.

3. The Wizarding World of Harry Potter (Universal Studios) [3]

An interactive wand that performs actions when waved. 

Conceptual Design 

We chose to design around the community of children instead of any single child. And so we began thinking of ways to bring all the children together. Currently, the children’s playground has a jungle gym, benches, a slide and a sandbox. But it’s most striking feature was a track that ran around the park. This track could be used by all and in it we saw our opportunity. Our Project is a magical track that dances, sparkles and twirls as children gather to play. As more children join, it synchronizes a brilliant light show, almost as if inviting more participation. At its crescendo the track lights up in a dazzling Supernova in celebration of all the children playing together. The amount of participation is displayed by a cartoon face that gets happier and happier as more children play with the track. 

Process

Based on our community and inspiration gathered from precedents, we generated some ideas that could be implemented in the playground such as a talking snowman, a swing that encourages sharing, and a responsive hopscotch floor.

We decided to expand on the hopscotch idea by creating an interactive and responsive floor. We settled on the use of lights as our form of interaction and response. By using FSRs, a neopixel light strip, and neopixel ring, we created a track that lights up when stepped on.

We encountered some challenges in scaling the design to a complete track as we could not use more than 5 FSR sensors. Thus, we decided to create a path with 5 FSR sensors that people can interact with. Additionally, we created a simulation of what it would look like when 3, 6, and 10 or more kids were playing on the track. Once 10 or more kids are playing, the track creates a light show in response to signal its excitement.

We also used a servo and separate particle device that connect to the playground track and respond as more children interact with the track. This particle and servo were used to create an indicator of how many kids are playing on the track. 

Storyboard

Prototype - Progress Images

Prototype - Circuit and Code

Sensors

• 4 Force Sensitive Resistors (to sense ‘footsteps’)
• 4 10-ohm pull-down resistors
• 3 Push-button toggles (to toggle between excited states)
• 1 Neopixel string - 50 count lights
• 1 Neopixel Circle - 24 count lights
• 2 external power 5V sources
• 2 Particle Boards
• 1 Servo

Next Steps

On our final demo day, we asked our reviewers, “What would you do to expand this concept?” They recommended that we start to explore the materials used to build this in real life. We should start considering what it would be like to work with translucent concrete, for example.

They also recommended that we start to think about expanding the light animations to be seasonal: halloween lights in October; christmas lights in December. They suggested that we envision little pleasant surprises into the animations. So every time a child returns to the park, it does something new. They recommended we explore other senses like sound. When children step on the lighted path, it could surprise them with the sound of a spring going ‘boing!’ or an ‘ow! That hurts!’. 

They mentioned how children may have been our initial target, but adults would equally enjoy our concept. Imagine if downtown Dallas had, in the center of the city, a play area for all the bar hoppers. They would get to experience the joy that adults rarely give themselves permission to.

References

Precedents: 

• Follow the lights: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Follow-the-Lights-the-design-concept-left-and-the-actual-twinkly-lights-activated_fig2_221568612
• Hopscotch for Geniuses: teamLab, 2013-, Interactive Digital Installation, Sound: Hideaki Takahashi: https://www.teamlab.art/ew/hopscotch_macao/
• https://www.detailorientedtraveler.com/interactive-wands-wizarding-harry-potter/