swing testing

A chilly December afternoon with the light falling... I arrived at the little playground in Brandon Hill Park as Tine was testing bright LED strips cable-tied to the uprights of a set of swings, and running across the ground in front of the swings. Connected to battery packs and controlled by small remotes, we tested their appeal first with a couple of young girls. The appeal of bright colourful responses to their familiar playful activities caught these children's imaginations and they had to be cajoled into leaving the swings behind. 

Our crack team of young coaches arrived in the 4.30 darkness, excitement at the now vivid LED strips bubbling over. The swings to me looked like the first elements of the construction of some SF fairground. 

The activity was intended mainly for technical testing: what the lights would look like, where on the swings' structure they might be attached. We won't be able to set up a properly interactive system for some time yet, so we were surprised and pleased that the young coaches were so enthusiastic and excited at simply swinging in the dark with lights. They were happy to shout out instructions to Tine to operate the lights remotely, changing colour at points or movements an individual child saw as significant (when they went particularly high for instance). 

In the dark, the wind and the rain (which began soon after the coaches arrived) it was hard to photograph and video the swinging (the more expert images here were taken by Alison), but amongst the wind noise and general hubbub we can hear the children shouting out ideas for what the lights might do at certain points, the selection of favourite colours as a reward, and a (no doubt videogame-inspired) proposal for a game structured by levels.

It became clear that both the young 'civilian' children who first had a go, and the young coaches played on the swings much longer than they would normally and all engaged in negotiations when adults tried to get them to leave ('one more go'...). This bodes well for our aim of a fully responsive and adaptable interactive / game mechanic.