A Very Playful Summer
It has been quite an incredible summer. Play Sandbox has exploded into life in a burst of noise, energy and just a little bit of chaos. We are doing things differently this time: tailoring our process to the specifics of the theme, meeting the needs of the children and getting braver as a team.
We began by finding great people and bringing them together for a wild camp in a country estate. By taking people, on a coach and then a walk through some woods, to a space outside of their usual environment we hoped to engender a sense of camaraderie and experimentation that would spark collaboration. Academics from classics, childhood studies and architecture came together with games designers, filmmakers and engineers plus a group of children, our producers and a magician. It was a long, hot summers’ day, the place was beautiful and our agenda was ‘play’. How could it be anything but imperfect and brilliant?
Watch this film to see from the wild camp:
REACT Play Sandbox wild camp from REACT on Vimeo.
The children at the wild camp are our young coaches (follow this link to read more about them) and will be with us throughout Play Sandbox. We believe that the best products for children are designed with them and this astonishing group will be questioning, pushing and heckling our projects into making better stuff. Since the wild camp we have been working with them on how to form and express their opinions. We have had sessions identifying the ingredients of play, planning feedback charts, been on a behind the scenes tour of Aardman Studios, visited MShed and spent a lot of time talking about Minecraft. We have been very careful to handle their expectations about the role of young coach, so as to give them agency without burdening them with responsibility.
The month of August was spent helping people to form teams and develop their ideas for Play Sandbox, culminating in a Play and Pitch day on 1st September. In a departure from our normal selection process we didn’t have a written application but instead invited all teams to present their work to each other, spend some time with the young coaches and have a short interview with our Panel. We were delighted with the response; the teams were generous and energetic, our Panel engaged and thoughtful but above all the young coaches confounded our expectations with their insight and fed into the decisions in a very meaningful way.
So the announcement about our successful projects will be coming very soon. I can’t tell you who they are just yet but there will be astronauts and animals, towers and tents, games and grand designs.
