Tuesday, August 23, 2016

Paratransit for Parks: Fixed and Flexible Recreation examples

Fixed recreation equipment 

-is permanently attached to structures in a park

Example list:

 Bankshot

Magical Bridge Playground in Palo Alto is a fixed equipment playground billed as the countrys most inclusive. Why because it inclusive for both children and adults with special needs. 

 Flexible Recreation equipment

-is loose pieces of recreation equipment that are not permanently attached to the ground, walls or structures in a park

Example List:


Lego blocks for autism
A bell ball for the visually impaired
are 2 examples of flexible equipment for people with special needs


Fat Brain Toys 

Flexible recreation equipment for people with special needs need not be special, it often  must just be available

Rockefeller Park in NYC was not designed as an inclusive park, however  it was designed with a flexible recreation parkhouse.

 I talked to the staff there and learned

-If sufficient demand they will add requested equipment

-People may donate equipment....what this means is that a family of a person with special needs, can donate a piece of equipment for use in the park, so they don't have to shelp  it to the park constantly. 










Saturday, August 6, 2016

How play has changes generationally

At the start of every school year, Diane Levin, an education professor at Boston’s Wheelock College who teaches a course called “Meaning and Development of Play,” has her students interview people of different ages about how they used to play when they were children. The results are not surprising: Every year, her students report that interview subjects over age 50 played outside all day in big groups of their peers, with a few toys (“maybe a ball”) and no adult supervision. People between the ages of 20 and 40, who grew up in the 1980s, ‘90s, and early 2000s, watched a lot of television but still played outside, often make-believe games inspired by TV shows and movies.

For young people today, however, it’s a different story. “They hardly play. If they do play it’s some TV script. Very prescribed,” Levin said. “Even if they have friends over, it’s often playing video games.”  link

Thursday, August 4, 2016

Augementing Parks realities

Unlike libraries that offer library goers thousands of loose parts (books/DVD's) to choose from most parks that I know offer park goers a dearth of recreation activities. Libraries are indoors  Loose Parks.

Elsewhere I discuss ways to add "real"  Loose Parts  to these parks  to make them more attractive to members of the community. Here are a number of virtual  Loose Parts that can also meet that goal.


Smartphone based


Parks landscapers architects can create a combination of fixed features and augmented reality features to create parks that will be personalized in real time to most peoples requirements, no matter what their ages or abilities...








Toys"R"Us TRU Magic - Alanah




Make NYC Your Gym/ Make NYC Your Park
Make Chelsea Your Art Gallery

This would allow for Art walks for people who have Smartphones  with GPS. By setting routes along the trail of Link NYC kiosks, everyone will have  WiFi for these walks.

-Set First  Route up 8th Avenue
-Citybenches  and parks will be part of this park

Art will be static for all and for those with augmented reality, will be more (see below)





Pokémon Go, for all its novelty and nostalgia and fun, was never meant to be the pinnacle of AR gaming; it is simple and has little objective aside from “catching ‘em all.” What Pokémon Go is, however, is one of the first iterations of what will undeniably be many more AR games. If done right, some say the technology Go introduced to the world could bring back the kind of outdoor, creative, and social forms of play that used to be the mainstay of childhood. Augmented reality, it stands to reason, could revitalize the role of imagination in kids’ learning and development.  link



Wallame 

Allows you to add images to real world locations that are visible to anyone using the wallame application. A public space can be tagged with augmented reality imges.  A variation on Wallame could allow different images to come up for different groups (older folks, kids, etc).

In a park with a tanble, parkgoers could choose the set of objects that will populate the table.  Recently I was in a public space with a chess set on the table, I sat at the table and fellow at the next table asked me do i play chess. I didn't  however with a AR application that matched chess players, a chess player at a  Bronx  park, could play with a chess player in a Manhattan park.

 This could be done for other park structures too.




 Long Beach has received a grant to add outdoor office features to a park that will include augmented realities



By adding



Dedicated Equipment

Having recently seen Microsoft Hololens and Magic Leap  I see both of these mixed reality technologies as creating  tremendous opportunities to offer a single piece of recreation equipment that can meet a far greater depth of  recreation needs then any piece of fixed equipment.



Microsoft Holovision




Magic Leap











 Koski is a building blocks game that combines Lego, magnets, and augmented reality in an engaging fashion that may eventually pull your kids away from Pokémon Go. The game — created by Václav Mlynář — uses wooden blocks, magnetic discs, and an iPad app to allow players to create digital worlds with features like trees, ladders, and waterfalls that characters can interact with.

Koski




Project Tango

Augumented surfaces

 I saw a video of a raygun in a augumented reality video



Holding onto nothing is no fun


Giving someone a real gun like this to place a mixed reality gun on would be a more satisfying experience.  By adding similar"unardorned"  features to a space (swivel chair for captains chair etc) the mixed reality experience will be enhanced


It turns out a Holodeck is a pretty huge investment

I bet in a few years an at-home experience will deliver powerful, Holodeck-like experiences, at least from an audio/visual perspective. But unless you’re a very rich person with some spare rooms you would like to renovate as a VR funhouse, sensorial, immersive environments like the one we went through today are only going to come from projects like The Void.  link

Our parks are the spare rooms that can become AR funhouses




Augementing Parks realities





Much of the equipment will be real world recreation equipment things like lego sets and guitars. But those are 20th century recreation  objects. paratransit for parks will transform 20th century fixed parks into 21st century loose parks with concepts like  Augmented Reality and hi bandwith wifi gamiing.

Having recently seen Microsoft Holovision and Magic Leap  I see both of these technologies as creation tremendous opportunities to offer a single piece of recreation equipment that can meet far more recreation needs then any piece of fixed equipment.




Microsoft Holovision




Magic Leap











 Koski is a building blocks game that combines Lego, magnets, and augmented reality in an engaging fashion that may eventually pull your kids away from Pokémon Go. The game — created by Václav Mlynář — uses wooden blocks, magnetic discs, and an iPad app to allow players to create digital worlds with features like trees, ladders, and waterfalls that characters can interact with.

Koski





Augmented Reality Aert Shoes in parks and other Public Spaces

Make NYC Your Gym/ Make NYC Your Park/Make Chelsea Your Art Gallery

This would allow for Art walks for people who have Smartphones  with GPS. By setting routs along the trail of Link NYC kiosks, everyone will have WiFI for these walks.

-Set First  Route up 8th Avenue
Unified park System Plam
Citybenches  and parks will be part of this park


Microsoft Holovision




Magic Leap




Pokémon Go, for all its novelty and nostalgia and fun, was never meant to be the pinnacle of AR gaming; it is simple and has little objective aside from “catching ‘em all.” What Pokémon Go is, however, is one of the first iterations of what will undeniably be many more AR games. If done right, some say the technology Go introduced to the world could bring back the kind of outdoor, creative, and social forms of play that used to be the mainstay of childhood. Augmented reality, it stands to reason, could revitalize the role of imagination in kids’ learning and development.  link



Wallame 

Allows you to add images to real world locations that are visible to anyone using the wallame application. A public space can be tagged with augmented reality imges.  A variation on Wallame could allow differemnt images to come up for different groups (older folks, kids, etc).

A park could have a table, parkgoers could choose the set of objects that will populate the table.  Recently I was in a public space with a chess set on the table, I sat at the table and fellow at the next table asked me do i play chess. I didn't  however with a AR application that matched chess players, a chess player at a bronxx park, could play with a chess player in a Manhattan park.

 This could be done for other park structures too.




Project Tango
 


 The raygun above is augmented reality, I doubt the person is holding anything, by giving them real world objects to hold the feel of the object will be enhanced...
By offering/building  "blank" structures in a playspace like this a tactile sense can be added to  augmented realities
 
-augmented reality gear will turn fixed parks into Loose Park based on peoples specific needs and desires (one link!)

Adding equipment lockers to parks



Adding equipment lockers to parks
This idea  is so low cost that it could readily be implemented for every park in a city.




Place lockers in many  of a citys park.
 Outdoor & vandal proof lockers


-each locker will contain recreation equipment for one (or possibly more)special need(s).

 

-Keys to these lockers will  (initially*) be made available only to people with special needs

-A key  to  one of the  lockers in the park nearest where a person with special needs lives may be obtained from a city agency that lends keys to these lockers.

 _lockers can be set up filled with equipment (easiest)

There
-doesn't have to be a lot of lockers
-lockers need not be filled with any equipment



-Set up a few lockers
-When a special needs resident requests equipment
-A parks department storehouse will ship equipment for the locker to the district maintence crew
-crew will place items in locker
-person with special needs will; be informed that locker is now filled with recreation equipment



This agency may be eithe:

-The Parks department
-The city's Library system
-The city's health department
- Departnment of Social services Toy Loan in LA done by Departmentt of Social Services
-another city agency with a mandate to work with people with special needs

Travel distance to a park is an important factor in how often a park is used. By having special needs recreation equipment made available in EVERY city park travel distance to parks with equipment for special needs will be minimized and park usage  by people with special needs should increase.

Paratransit for parks is not met to replace the need for the creation of fixed equipment inclusive playgrounds  in a city.   Rather

-it is meant to act as a supplement to  the few  fixed equipment inclusive playspaces that most city's can afford to build. 

-It is also meant to offer sopecial needs recreation equipment to populations that are not served by inclusive playgrounds.  Many fixed equipment inclusive playgrounds are built for children with special needs. They are not built to serve the needs of teenagers, adults and seniors. By adding flexible equipment options as these lockers to parks, people with special needs who are over 12 years of age can also have their recreation neess met.


*Either initially limit to special needs, or offer 2 types of lockers special needs and developmentally normal. This will make sure that those with special need will always have equipment available.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(draft)



Much of the equipment will be real world recreation equipment things like lego sets and guitars. But those are 20th century recreation  objects. paratransit for parks will transform 20th century fixed parks into 21st century loose parks with concepts like  Augmented Reality and hi bandwith wifi gamiing.

Having recently seen Microsoft Holovision and Magic Leap  I see both of these technologies as creation tremendous opportunities to offer a single piece of recreation equipment that can meet far more recreation needs then any piece of fixed equipment.

Microsoft Holovision




Magic Leap








continued  here








Definitions Loose parks,, Paratransit for Parks

A fixed park is a park where most or all of its recreation equipment is  bolted to the ground. The equipment offered  in a fixed park is static and cannot change and grow to meet the needs of the community.

In NYC Fixed parks actually do get  updated, but  it can often be decades before this occurs.



Loose park-A loose park is one  that offers
- A "library" of portable recreation equipment 

-can have new equipment added to it's library in days not decades


-A fixed park can be transformed into a loose park by either adding a library of loose parts to the park, or making a library of loose parts available in a nearby structure.

-The cost to transform a fixed park into a  loose park is minimal

Paratransit is recognized in North America as special transportation services for people with disabilities, often provided as a supplement to fixed-route bus and rail systems by public transit agencies.

Paratransit for Parks-by supplementing the fixed equipment offerings of a fixed park with  a library of special needs   Loose Parts, parks departments can create a paradyme analogous to paratransit for their parks.



The idea of Loose Parks is  based on Involvement and Participation by psychologist Paul Rand from  Lawrence Halprin's New York,  New York  and  Simon Nicholson's   How Not to Cheat Children The Theory of Loose Parts. 


Tuesday, August 2, 2016

3 ways to add Looseness to a park

Moveable seating/Tables

A park in my neighborhood canoe Park was built several years ago. The only seating it offered were benches that I rarely would see used.

This year moveable seats and tables were added to the park, now everytime I pass by I see these occupied by a whole bunch of people.

Tables/chairs  not only add looseness to a park they also increase the socialbility of a park. Social seating is far nore usre friendly then benches.


Augumented Reality

Many ...


WiFi/ Computers

Adding WiFi to an area greatly incresase its looseness
I've surveyed a bunch of libraries and found that the vast majority of adults are noit reading books in these libraries, they are using them to access the internet, and

The  public spaces in my area that have wifi and moveable seating tables are far more popularr then the parks that do not offer these options