First UK hi-tech playground

Peterborough City Council is opening the UK’s first hi-tech playground in a bid to get the city's kids (and their parents and grandparents!) active.

Peterborough City Council is pioneering the way with a UK first – a SmartUs technology play and learning environment! The new play area will be opened at Thistle Drive Play Centre in Peterborough on Saturday 27th January 2007 offering the local community a unique opportunity to experience the future of play. The SmartUs equipment, designed by the playground equipment manufacturer Lappset, aims at motivating people of all ages to exercise and learn through the application of information technology.  Peterborough City Council sees this as an exciting and important social investment for the future.

SmartUs is a truly innovative concept and challenges traditional attitudes to playground equipment.  At a time where rising obesity rates have become high priority issues on Government Agendas, and attract frequent media attention, the SmartUs play concept encourages people of all ages to play, exercise and learn together.  SmartUs offers an exciting, flexible and interactive entertainment experience for entire families where healthy outdoor activity in a modern social technology environment provides a realistic play alternative to the ’Game Console’ generation! 

“Peterborough City Council is a modern and progressive organisation and wants the best for its citizens” says Denise Noble, Children’s Play Services Manager. “Within the ‘Children and Young People Plan’, the vision is that every child and young person has the best opportunities to learn and achieve, and the plan sets out how we will turn this vision into reality.  The new technology will support good physical and mental health, informal learning to develop broad skills for adulthood, and not forgetting the fun and enjoyment during the process,” Noble says.  Thistle Drive Play Centre offers a wide range of activities designed to aid child development and is considered a hub of the community. The SmartUs environment at Thistle Drive will be one of the first five to be built in the world and totally unique to the UK. 

Mayor of Peterborough, Councilor Michael Burton, will open the new play environment at 11am on Saturday the 27th January2007, and will be joined by children from local schools, their parents and the residents of a local Residential home.

Lappset Group is one of Europe’s leading playground equipment manufacturers. In addition to playground equipment, the Lappset product range includes sports ground equipment, as well as park, garden and street furniture. The products are mainly manufactured from strong Nordic pine. The founder of the company, Antero Ikäheimo, started the company in 1970, and now the group employs approximately 210 people. There are daughter companies in five different countries. Lappset products are exported to over 40 different countries. More information at www.lappset.com

SmartUs is a multidisciplinary partnership project* divided into five subprojects. It is building a new social space for play and exercise from the perspectives of design, learning, exercise and technology. The project has created an intelligent and even safer learning environment for children and adults that is based on spontaneous learning and in which family generations meet together in the spirit of play and exercise, thus broadening the meaning of a playground. More information at www.smartus.fi

*Lappset’s partners in the project include Hewlett Packard, Nokia, Polar, University of Lapland, Rovaniemi Polytechnic, Elektrobit and TeliaSonera.

The Association of Play Industries Federation House Stoneleigh Park Warwickshire CV8 2RF

T +44(0) 24 76 414999 ext 208
F +44(0) 24 76 414990
E api@api-play.org