Power Playground
An interactive exhibit to educate children about the future of energy through play
Experience design | Interviews | Ethnographic research | User testing | Prototyping
Project Details
Team:
Jaidev Kabo and Sohayainder Kaur
Duration:
3 months
Brief: To create an interactive exhibit for MuSo( Museum of Solutions) a children’s museum, along any one theme of the UN SDG’s.
(Sustainable Developmental Goals)
Introduction
Power Playground is a playground where each interaction provides for fun and learning. Each toy allows you to create and expel energy in a playground providing children with the experience of learning through playing. The exhibit is designed around an SDG's (Sustainable Developmental Goals) called Sustainable Production and Consumption for a children’s museum called MuSo (Museum of Solutions). This power playground is equipped to be indoors as well as outdoors. It consists of a collection of 6 toys that make the playground diverse, familiar and fun.
Introduction to MuSo
The Museum of Solutions is a children's museum, that empowers children to build together through hands-on experiences based on the real world. MuSo has a revolving set of themes based on the SDG’s (Sustainable Development Goals) outlined by the UN. The SDG we will be exploring is sustainable production and consumption.
Research plan
Primary Research
1. Interviews
2. User Testing
Secondary Research
1. Understanding context (play)
2. Exploring Approaches
3. Picking a theme from the SDG's and another theme under a SDG.
Defining Play
Cal Holman's Abstract Episode (Design for Play)
Key Insights:
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Play creates the experience where you encounter situations, circumstances and unfamiliarities that you learn from.
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The importance of asking the right questions to inspire creative answers. Ex: what were you curious about not what did you learn.
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The first step of the design process should be designing the experience.
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Providing children with the opportunity to design their own play.
Designing Exhibits for Kid's by Gail Ringel
Key Insights:
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Collect naive notions from children of the concept you are exploring, so you can provide more clarity in those areas with your exhibit.
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Younger children aged 8-10, like breaking and making their own rules, older kids 10-13 like following structured rules, to achieve the end goal.
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Try to understand the way children think by identifying words and phrases children use to describe their world.
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Make the interaction challenging but achievable to capture children’s curiosity and to later inspire them to learn from experts in their area of interest.
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Start with ideas they have a reasonable chance of understanding, if they aren’t able to grasp certain concepts, it is unreasonable to use play to convey them.
Inspiring quotes
Maria Motesso- “Playing is the work of the child”
Jean Piaget - “Children require long uninterupted periods of playing and exploring
William Crain (reclaiming childhood -book) - “instead of asking “what do we want
the child to know and be able to do? we should ask “what capacities are the child spontaneously
motivated to develop at his or her current stage? “Instead of thinking of our own goals, we need
to consider children's interests and needs”
Gandhi - By education I mean an overall, drawing out the best in a child in body, mind and spirit.
“It’s not enough to provide a single path from a low floor to a high ceiling; it’s important to provide multiple pathways. Why? We want all children to work on projects based on their own personal interests and passions—and because different children have different passions, we need technologies that support many different types of projects, so that all children can work on projects that are personally meaningful to them.” - Mitchel Resnick, Lifelong Kindergarten
Maria Motesso- “Playing is the work of the child”
Jean Piaget - “Children require long uninterrupted periods of playing and exploring
Exploring approaches
Local to global context
Things that apply to children in their daily lives can be compared to larger world issues.
Interdisciplinary approach
Create a space where all learners are accountable and challenged. Explain the butterfly effect and highlight their role and personal actions in the grander scheme of things. ( How one person can make a difference) - an initiative to make them realize the concerns for the environment.
Learner centered
Participatory Design
The Convivial Toolbox by Elizabeth Sanders & Pieter Jan Steppers
“Participatory design is an approach to design that attempts to actively involve the people who are being served through design in the process to help ensure that the designed product /service meets their needs. A key characteristic of participatory design is the use of physical artifacts as thinking through tools throughout the process.” —Developing the means for participants to creatively generate ideas, reflect on their knowledge and experiences, and reach applicable, viable outcomes that are meaningful to them.
Enable their agency, their voices are heard and matter, allowing them to make independent analogies and decisions.
Case-Based Learning
The Improvement of Indonesia Students ‘Engagement in Civic Education through CaseBased Learning’ Muhammad Japar
Case-based learning can help students organize and bring to life abstract and disparate concepts by forcing them to make difficult decisions about complex human dilemmas. For instance, a case study can express and defend intentions because it represents a unique case, deserving to be studied in its own right.
Inquiry based
Inquiry-Based - Learning is grounded in observing and asking relevant questions. Encourage discovery and collection of data to understand the terrain or area that they are exploring.
What is Play?
Play is exploration-based learning where the learner holds agency for what and how they learn.
Examples of play-based learning
Understanding the SDGs (Sustainable Developmental Goals)
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STGs are proposed by NITI (National Institution for Transforming India). a State-of-the-art Resource Centre.
Exploring Sustainable Production and Consumption under the theme of energy
Proposal
Primary research
Unfortunately due to the stigma around meeting new people during COVID, we only found 1 child who was willing to participate in our activities and 1 online interview with children between the age of 8-and 12.
So there were assumptions made from our end going further into this project.
Interviews
Questionnaire for Learners
1. What is your routine?
2. What do you like doing at school? ex playing sports, music, hanging with friends
3. What's your favourite subject?
4. What have you learned at school that you have done after school
5. What do you do after school?
6. Did you start doing anything new during the pandemic + hobbies?
7. What do you like doing on the internet? + with friends
8. What kind of shows do you watch + what happens in them + youtube?
9. What is climate change/global warming?
10. What causes climate change/global warming?
11. What do you know about renewable energy?
12. Can you name some sources of renewable energy?
13. What kind of games/toys do you like to play with? (DigitalORPhysical)?
14. How much time do you spend on your computer vs
outside?
15. What do you want to be when you grow up?
Name: Riyan Sanghi
Date: 3rd March 2021
Grade: 6th
Age: 11
School: Scottish School
Wants to be a scientist when he grows up
Insights
1. Likes to play Minecraft. (online building with friends).
2. Likes to play board games.
3. Enjoys science experiments.
4. After school, spends 1.5 hours on homework
5. Likes to code: Javascritp HTML, CSS, can code websites and webapps.
6. ”I like practicals not theory. You just can’t learn to click, you know it practically but you just can’t learn to click”.
7. Close-ended learning is not enjoyable or considered helpful/learning
8. Enjoys practical learning over theory in classes such as science and computers.
We mapped all the ways energy is produced in India, through our research we discovered that energy in India ia primarily created through coal power plants although there have been efforts to diversify the options, particularly in the case of renewable energies, coal remains the dominant source of electricity in the country.
So we mapped out the process of creating energy with intentions of recreating them at a smaller scale to mimic the process and create games around them. We looked at all the sources of renewable and present ways of making energy and incorporated them into our design
Material exploration and prototyping
A peephole camera that on rotating a handle, showed a series of images that explained the production and distribution of energy.
An experiment, where we constructed a motor with copper coils, magnets and foil, and tested it by powering it with a battery.
A game where on a given piece of land, according to the grid, one needs to place renewables in places they are best suited for, to understand the limitations and potential of renewable energy.
User Testing
Name: Sree Samyukta
8-year-old Samyukta thinks school is easy.
About Sree Samyukta
1. Likes going to school.
2. She enjoys conducting science experiments.
3. Has learned about basic energy production/consumption concepts. Somewhat understands these concepts.
4. Has limited access to technology, recreational time is limited as well.
5. Maths and Science are her favorite subject
Conversation with the Guardian
1. Has found only online learning to not be holistic in its format.
2. Can tend to forget about children who are quiet while also silencing children that are participative.
3. The lack of general interaction with her peers is disheartening.
4. Has found her own workload increase as she feels the need to help Samyuktha.
5. Despite being against the idea of children using technology recreationally she found our digital experiences to be engaging and informative and would use them again.
Expereince tools
Expereince 1
An AR-based experience that takes you through the process of energy production from the coal mine to the switch in your house.
Expereince 2
A block-based puzzle, depicting the distribution of energy from the plant to your house. Each block had one right answer and 5 wrong answers. Participants need to figure out which face has the correct answer on each box and assemble it in the right order.
Experience 3
An exercise where participants wrote their daily routine and then cancelled out all the things that would require electricity to be done.
Research Synthesis
Criteria to Test
Observation
1. Map “naive notions”.
2. What sort of response do different mediums provide?
3. How interesting is an interaction in this format?
4. What information is retained and returned?
1. There was a lot of explaining required from our side.
2. All interactions had a right answer.
3. She was amazed by the digital interaction and enjoyed the physical activity
4. All activities were based off of each other, which required her to remember what she learned to understand the next step.
5. Her answers seem to be regurgitations of what she has learned in school. While not fully understanding concepts.
6. The introduction of any topic which might be covered in school immediately produces a regurgitated answer rather than their own individual thoughts
Insights
1. Shorter interactions work better.
2. The interactions were measured on their rote learning effectiveness.
3. Technology-based interactions are exciting and attract more attention.
4. She enjoyed making the puzzle as well, but prompts from us were required.
5. As each step was based on the other if she didn’t remember the first interaction she will get stuck in the next one, which will be time consuming and make her lose interest.
Takeaway from the Interview
Decided to move away from current methods of production entirely as it is already covered in the standard curriculum
Linear exercises require success at each stage to progress.
A common fault across our exercises was the requirement for external assistance to navigate the exercise.
The digital experience brought about a good response.
Current School Syllabus
On looking at the children's syllabus, we noticed that they were already learning about them in detail in school, and an exhibit of that will not grasp their attention and spark any curiosity. which is why we moved from larger concepts to something they could interact with on a smaller
and produce and expel energy themselves through toys within a playground which they are familiar with. it is also a space where they as children can make an impact and envision the future.
Ideation
Prompts for Brainstorming / How might we's
1. How might we use tangible mediums to explain energy.
2. How might we use energy to explain energy.
3. How might we explain energy through digital interfaces.
4. What existing interactions could be made more fun if scaled up?
5. How might we combine tactile and digital interfaces.
Ideas for Exhibit
1. Crystal ball that shows the past and the future and tells you to make your present by tinkering with the tools provided.
4. A board with interconnected toys, that causes chain reactions. Agency is provided to the learner to make their own circuits and chain reactions.
7. A big energy production plant/playground where kids have play and use their whole body to operate different mechanisms and power a simple device.They could be doing this to achieve a simple task like : -How many people does it take to turn on a light bulb?
10. Playground
*Jungle gym, with a view of playing inside the network of producing transferring and receiving energy.
* Creating energy through running and powering a large fan.
2. Use a reel camera to show pictures of how electricity is created.
5. A projection mapping experience where kids play with tangible materials to make impressions on the screen/wall
8. Finite Resource City Builder
- Learners will be all the resources they need to build a functioning electrical grid to power a scaled-down city
.-These resources would be provided infinite quantities and would eventually be consumed in the production process
11. A simple display of the production and consumption of electricity, with two buttons, one to create and one to consume, the aim being to keep up with the demand of energy consumption by just pressing buttons.
3. Use a puzzle made from boxes to introduce and explain how energy is made and supplied to their homes. One side has the pictures and the other the correct terminology for the process and appliances.
6. Using materials that only allow temporary visibility, and disappear after their interaction for a fresh start for the next batch of learners.
9. A network of escape rooms, where you need to collaboratively work on producing and distributing energy within the space. room affects the power of the other. The aim is to create a balance by tackling a series of challenges within each room. (Life-sized or Dollhouse)
12. Using a digital interface to explain concepts and have learners interact with it by shooting down objects. Like a video game ( Nuclear particles)
Power Playground
A playground is a familiar space where unwritten rules are already understood by all.
It's a space where collaboration is often required to play.
A play-based space allows energy to be presented in a familiar environment and when integrated seamlessly allows the process of understanding and learning to be made engaging and fun rather than focus showcase current methods, their benefits and fallout. The playground setting allows learners to actively participate in the production process and immediately see/interact with the product of their actions.
Prototyping
Form Exploration
Exploring Solar Technology
We looked at an existing solar power toy, that could transform into different appliances with limited parts.
We further used the solar panel to test our own prototype for our solar exhibit.
Sun Room
Through our explorations with the solar toy, we decided to use the motor and the solar panel to test our own exhibit.
First, we tried to replace the sun, so the exhibit is functional even on cloudy days and evenings. We used a halogen light as it's the only light the solar panel responds to. So we decided to bounce that light off of mirrors, so the children can decide where on the solar panel board they want to point, and for that, the light needs to hit the mirror at a certain angle, achievable through a concave mirror. To replicate the concave shape we used a TV Dish and placed mirrors on top to reflect the light onto the solar panel.
We had difficulties with the halogen lamp as it was heating up too much, and was releasing fumes which became a safety hazard for us and the light bounced by the mirror could potentially hurt someone.
We tried bouncing the light through actual sunlight with a panel that was foldable and rectangular. That seemed to work much better. We decided to work with natural light instead.
Stepper
For the stepper, we used piezoelectric sensors to create power by applying pressure. Through our tests, we noticed that slight pressure(standing on it) worked better than sudden and extreme pressure (jumping on it). To derive more current and still make the stepper fun to play with we decided to add a spring to the bottom, so when pressure is applied the mounted sensors will vibrate, and create energy when it is vibrating after the pressure has been applied and released.
Generator/ Ball / Slide
We picked up a lot of small pieces from a plumber, and a mechanic to see how the rotation of the pendulum would go and how it would produce energy, we tried to fit random nuts and parts together to see if we could get something that resembles this technology.
When we did we used the blending machine, to check whether the motor will produce energy or not, and then tried with the pendulum. It was definitely slow but if we used it for longer durations of time it did produce small amounts of charge that could light an LED for a couple of seconds.
Design principles
Design Principles to maintain consistency:
1. Closed Start, open-ended - Providing limited options at the start of an experience but having no constraints on how the given options are used/applied.
2. Collaborative Play - encouraging participants to interact with others to achieve a goal.
3. Self-explanatory - no instruction or outside help required.
4. covid safe
Final outcome
Physical prototype
The Solar Wall is an interactive solar panel array that recharges from sunlight coming in through windows. When a solar panel begins receiving lesser light it visualises this information through corresponding LEDs placed around, creating an array of reactive light blocks.
