Program + Site Information

Download the competition program information.

Download the playground site plan.

Download the school site plan.

Download photos and a ground plan of community site.

Local Material Costs

Go Play! strives to use materials that are local, sustainable and recycled. Both from an affordability perspective and an environmental perspective, we are really interested for teams to focus their designs using firstly, used tires and secondly, logs.

Our material palette (with prices in us dollars) includes:

• Eucalyptus Logs
  • 4m long x 6” diameter = $5.50
  • 2m long x 5” diameter = $1.80
  • 2m long x 4” diameter = $1.00
  • 2m long x 3” diameter = $.50
• Bamboo Poles
  • 2” diameter = $1
• Leaf Roof Panels 1m x 0.2m = $.50
• Nails = 25 kilos = $28.25
• Screws = 2 kilos = $5.20
• Concrete (ratio of cement to sand to gravel= 1 :2:3)
  • Bag of cement = $4
  • Cubic meter of sand = $12
  • Cube meter of gravel = $24
• Rope per meter = $5
• Chain per meter = $4
• Tires
  • Motorbike = $0
  • Car = $0
  • Trucks = $0
• Metal
  • Sheet metal 1.5 mm thick x 2.4m x 1.2m = $10
  • Steel tube 6m long x 4cm diameter = $6
• Paint, Primer
  • Oil Paint, gallon = $13.50 (typical amount 10 gallons)
  • Thinner, gallon (suggested amount, 1 gallon) = $13.50
  • Metal Primer, gallon (suggested amount, 1 gallon) = $10
  • Turpentine, gallon (suggested amount, 1 gallon) = $13.50

Because of the small budget, and for the desire to come up with designs that can be used in a global context, we want to emphasize using tires.

Why Tires? Tires can be cut and manipulated to create many parts. We like to emphasize tires because they don’t rot or rust like wood and steel. In rainy climates, steel may seem strong but the welds become weak quickly with wear and tear and although the right wood is very long lasting, a tire will be solid long after both others are gone. Environmentally, using tires in this manner not only keeps tires from dumps and landfills, but provides an example on how items can be reused for good use in the communities where we work.

Download the Budget + Costs assumptions

About Burmese migrant workers in Thailand

An estimated 2 million people from Burma are living in Thailand, the majority of whom are without legal status[i]; a direct result of the devastating long-term effects of military rule in Burma. There are an estimated 75,000 to 100,000 migrants in Tak province alone (the province where the school is located), in addition to 40,000-50,000 officially displaced refugees. This population includes both registered and unregistered migrants, their family members, and other displaced persons from Burma who live as unrecognized refugees outside UN-sanctioned refugee camps. Estimates of internally displaced people (IDP) in Burma are as high as 3 million[ii], and there are 135,000 recognized refugees living in camps in Thailand.[iii]

These unrecognized refugees and migrants living have limited access to education, health services and information. Even those living in non-IDP areas inside Burma suffer from the grim fact that the country itself “spends the lowest proportion of public expenditure in the world on health care and lowest absolute per capita figure in the world ($4 per capita).”[iv] For those living in IDP areas and in migrant communities, this number is even smaller. This playground will directly benefit children who have suffered under the world’ss longest running civil war and military dictatorship where torture, rape and terror are commonplace.

[i] Caouette, T. and Pack, M. Pushing Past the Definitions: Migration from Burma to Thailand. OSI and Refugees International, December 2002.

[ii] Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, Burma (Myanmar): No end in sight for internal displacement crisis, 14th February 2008, www.internal-displacement.org Accessed 1st April 2009.

[iii] TBBC, www.tbbc.org/camps/2009/-01-jan-map-tbbc-unhcr.pdf Accessed 12th March 2009.

[iv] International Rescue Committee, Life in Exile: Burmese Refugees along the Thai-Burma Border, 2009, http://www.theirc.org/help/take-action/resources/irc_thailandadvocacypap... Accessed 12th March 2009.

Techniques

Some resources for using tires in playground construction:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/20948584/HOW-TO-MAKE-PLAYGROUND-USING-TYRES

Playground safety

Please review the Public Playground Safety Handbook, by the US Consumer Product Safety Commission Safety Book. This document should be used as a guideline as you design the playground. Pay particular attention to heights and entrapment information.

http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/pubs/325.pdf

Tips

Four elements that children look for in school grounds have been identified:

A place for doing, which offered opportunities for physical activities, for ‘doing' all kinds of things, and which recognized their needs to extend themselves, develop new skills, to find challenges and take risks.

A place for thinking, which provided intellectual stimulation, things which they could discover and study and learn about, by themselves and with friends, which allowed them to explore and discover and understand more about the world they live in.

A place for feeling, which presented color, beauty and interest, which engendered a sense of ownership and pride and belonging, in which they could be small without feeling vulnerable, where they could care for the place and people in it and feel cared for themselves.

A place for being, which allowed them to ‘be' themselves, which recognized their individuality, their need to have a private persona in a public place, for privacy, for being alone with friends, for being quiet outside of the noisy classroom, for being a child.

(from Titman, W. (1994). Special Places; Special People: The Hidden Curriculum of Schoolgrounds. Surrey: World Wide Fund for Nature/Learning through Landscapes.)

Elements to consider when designing

• Shade
• Water
• Seating
• Landscape
• Sun
• Natural contours
• People flows through the space
• Locally appropriate design
• Accessibility
• Age separation
• Conflicting activities
• Sight lines
• Signage and/or labeling
• Supervision
• Good planning and layout
• Separate fast moving elements from other elements ie swings merry go rounds
• Enable movement between elements without crossing through other elements
• Allow safe space between elements for safe fall zones

Additional Resources

Malone, Karen and Paul Tranter. “Children's Environmental Learning and the Use, Design and Management of Schoolgrounds.” Children, Youth and Environments 13(2), 2003. Retrieved [date] from:
http://www.colorado.edu/journals/cye/13_2/Malone_Tranter/ChildrensEnvLea...

Frost, Joe, and James Talbot. "Magical Playscapes." Planet Earth Playscapes. Earthplay, n.d. Web. 27 Jul 2010:
http://www.planetearthplayscapes.com/articles_magicalps.html

White , Randy, and Vicki Stoecklin. "Children's Outdoor Play & Learning Environments: Returning to Nature." Early Childhood News March 1998: n. pag. Web. 27 Jul 2010:
http://www.whitehutchinson.com/children/articles/outdoor.shtml

http://gyanpedia.in/tft/Resources/books/jimmy.pdf

http://www.freeplaynetwork.org.uk/adventure/manage.htm

Thian, Deidre . "The importance of play." Curriculum Leadership . Curriculum Leadership , 28 Jul 2006. Web. 27 Jul 2010:
http://www.curriculum.edu.au/leader/all_work_and_no_play_makes_jack_a_du...

Isenberg , Joan Packer, and Nancy Quisenberry. "PLAY: ESSENTIAL FOR ALL CHILDREN." A Position Paper of the Association for Childhood Education International. Association for Childhood Education International (ACEI) , n.d. Web. 27 Jul 2010:
http://www.udel.edu/bateman/acei/playpaper.htm

Association for Childhood Education International:
http://acei.org