Digital game companies in outdoor play

hybridplay
Hybrid Play uses a smart phone and a giant ‘clip’ sensor

With the arrival of Pokemon Go, many parents noticed that a digital game can, in fact, get kids moving around outside. Pokemon Go uses ‘augmented reality’ where, looking through the camera on a device such as a smartphone, one sees computer imagery superimposed on a real life setting.

Now other companies are looking at the potential of enriching outdoor play using ‘augmented reality’ and other digital technology. This Guardian article profiles three companies getting into the field (along with useful critiques). I’ve included excerpts from the article:

Hybrid Play is a Spanish start-up which uses augmented reality (AR) – patching computer imagery on to real life – to transform playgrounds into video games. A wireless sensor resembling an over-sized clothes peg clips onto any piece of playground equipment. It then registers the movement of the children as they play and converts it into video games to play through a smartphone.

Greg Zeschuk, co-founder of gaming company BioWare (makers of the Jade Empire, Mass Effect and Dragon Age series), is now head of the AR start-up Biba. Its premise is that “all the playgrounds on Earth are actually the wreckage of robot spacecraft”. As kids enter a playground they meet a robot companion on their smartphone. Zeschuck has admitted that “after a career of putting people on their butts for hundreds of hours playing games, I’m trying to pay back the world by making games that make kids go outside.”

TP Toys, for example, recently added AR to its portfolio. The Lil’ Monkey climbing frame comes with an app that children use to play with a monkey character that climbs on the frame and suggests different games and levels to complete.

Have you tried any of these? How could they be used to enhance ecological learning or get kids involved in designing?

why kids should map places

Middle school kids in Nashville Tennessee have been successful in getting new bike infrastructure because of their mapping efforts.  Araz Hachadourian, reported in YES! magazine  that ‘Nashville Teens Mapped Their Daily Routes—And Got a New Bike Lane as a Result. In Nashville, Tennessee, and Chicago, city planners are responding to demands for better neighborhood mobility and bicycling infrastructure.

wheeltrue
Photo by Gabriela Aguirre-Iriarte

And it makes sense that planners would respond more strongly to kids…and I bet they’d respond even more strongly to younger kids who get involved in mapping the needs of their neighbourhoods and towns.

 

road paved with solar panels

Where’s one place that we have a lot of available flat space? Road surfaces. A village in France is experimenting by putting solar panels on their roads. The solar panels are supposed to be tough enough to drive on. The village experiment will determine how tough these solar panels really are. (reported in Inhabitat). The 1km of road paved with solar panels should power streetlighting for the village.

Waterway solar panel road surface

The road is by a French company called Wattway. The company says:

The world’s 1st ever photovoltaic road surface
Wattway is a patented French innovation that is the fruit of 5 years of research undertaken by Colas, world leader in transport infrastructure, and the INES (French National Institute for Solar Energy).

Tumble, a science podcast for kids

tumble-podcast-logoI learned about Tumble on the news of the podcast earning a place on the list of iTunes best podcasts for 2016. Check out Tumble here: http://www.sciencepodcastforkids.com

The news article, in Broadway World, of all places, gives this description:

Tumble explores the stories behind science discovery, starting with kids’ own questions. Often called “Radiolab for kids” by reviewers and listeners, the podcast inspires children to get curious and instill a love of science through storytelling. The show is hosted by Lindsay Patterson and Marshall Escamilla, a married team of a science journalist and a middle school music teacher, and produced with Sara Robberson Lentz, a science writer. Tumble is targeted for ages 6 – 12, but is made for all ages to learn something new in each show.