We where asked to provide some graphics for the playground of Tremona Road Childrens Centre

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As you can see these graphics will help to provide a hours of fun for Tremona Road Childrens Centre. For other examples of designs that you could have thermoplastic painted on yor play area visit our Thermoplastic line marking product page

Playground games for the Nintendo generation launched by university partnership

Clapping and skipping games that are popular in the school playground are to be converted into Wii-type computer games as part of a unique collaboration between three universities, the British Library and Nintendo.

The ambitious project, which involves the universities of London, Sheffield and East London, will generate prototype games similar to the Wii sports games played with handsets that take the place of tennis racquets or golf clubs.The development of Wii playground games, directed by Grethe Mitchell of the University of East London, is only one strand of a £600,000 project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council’s Beyond Text programme.

Grethe Mitchell, senior lecturer in UEL’s School of Humanities and Social Sciences, said: “Playground games and rhymes are evolving all the time. Our project aims to make this vital element of our cultural heritage accessible to the ‘Wii generation’.” The centre-piece of the project is the important collection of playground games and songs at the British Library: the sound archives of the renowned collectors Iona and Peter Opie. Researchers will convert these into a digital format under the supervision of Jonathan Robinson of the British Library.

They will then create an interactive website for the Library so that children, parents, educators and members of the public can access the digitised archives. The project’s third strand will be a two-year study of playground culture in two primary schools, one in London, the other in Sheffield. The London school is in the multi-ethnic King’s Cross area, close to the Library, while the Sheffield school serves a primarily white, working-class community.This strand, supervised by Professor Jackie Marsh of Sheffield University and Dr Rebekah Willett of the Institute of Education, University of London, will reveal how playground games, songs and rhymes are being influenced by comics, TV, film and computer games.

Children from the two schools will help to create the prototype computer games and design the library website. They will also co-curate the website, helping to select, describe and present its contents.The project is being backed by the former Children’s Laureate, Michael Rosen, who is a member of its advisory panel, and by Iona Opie, whose archive at the British Library is central to the research.Ends.UEL Press office contact: 0208 223 6239 or 07595 056245Return to top

Notes to Editors

The University of East London (UEL) is a global learning community with over 23,000 students from over 120 countries world-wide. Our vision is to achieve recognition, both nationally and internationally, as a successful and inclusive regional university proud of its diversity, committed to new modes of learning which focus on students and enhance their employability, and renowned for our contribution to social, cultural and economic development, especially through our research and scholarship. We have a strong track-record in widening participation and working with industry

How games change

Duck, Duck, Goose. Red Rover, Mother, May I? Playground games we played on Oak Hill Elementary School’s red dirt ball field a half a century ago were such fun during our “play” period.

These organized activities used our minds as well as our physical abilities

In the early 1950s, Oak Hill School had no playground equipment, but my father and Gary Hammond’s senior agriculture students welded together a merry-go-round, see-saws and two jungle gyms that lasted well into the 1970′s.

When there were too few kids for some of the group games, we played Marbles, Tag, Simon Says. When we were at home we splashed in mud puddles and sailed boats of wood with toothpick masts. Without sounding too whiny about not having toys, we sometimes tossed dry cow pies or rocks.

Yes, we used the ‘b’ word. We got bored. We quickly learned not to mention that word to our parents.

“I can find you something to do. It’s called chores. What about it?”

We ran outside and created something fun. Sticks made great guns or swords. We used our imaginations and survived.

Television only showed cartoons on Saturday mornings on one of the three channels we received. Transistor radios soon allowed portable listening to popular music.

Soon after my two sons were born, an amazing device was introduced into the eager hands of America’s youth: Atari. Colored squares on a television screen that were moved by the hand-held controller. Frogger and Pac-Man were the first games we watched as friends played. But technology was on a roll. Nintendo and Sega soon followed. Personal computers and their games were great, too.

There were adventure games, learning games and action games. Whereas we imagined our own adventures with sticks for swords and the family dog as a ferocious dragon, kids could now be in the middle of a realistic battle for the fate of the world. Players could put themselves in the role of hero as in the Zelda series games. (I loved to play that one.) Puzzle games like Tetris and Columns became frustrating, but made the distraught loser want to play again and again.

Sometimes games seemed addictive, resulting in sore thumbs for the player from the constant pressing the directional button. It also helped if the player leaned in the direction they wanted the character to go. Leaning to one side while playing a race car game made going around a curve much easier. Not really, but it seemed logical.

But our young people were missing out on the physical activities needed for their health. Slouched in front of a television or a computer was no exercise at all (except for strengthening thumbs)

Game designers are smart. They now have systems and games that require standing and going through the motions of batting, swinging or rolling a bowling ball. They offer exercise programs that let adults kiss the couch goodbye as well as the extra pounds. The system is called the Wii, which is short for Wireless inter-interface. But parents may use the spelling, ‘Whee!’ because it does get the kids on their feet for some exercise and fun. Because the games are so intense, some players stay up until the ‘wee’ hours of the morning to play.

The exercise dilemma for our youth is helped with the addition of motion game systems. When they add fresh air and sunshine from a little box in front of the television, then that will be the total game experience. The family dog may feel left out in his role-playing, but they may develop a system for him soon, a virtual reality fetch game.Debra Leigh Cloer is a member of the Morganton Writer’s group, an avid writer, grandmother of five and a lifelong resident of the Oak Hill community. (And plays the Wii with the grandchildren.)