Sample Wave Maze Playground System

Wave Maze, exclusively by Soft Play, is a new evolution of climbing fun for kids of all ages and abilities.  Consisting of two uniquely shaped wave platforms made of durable molded plastic to create a visually and challenging form of climbing fun unlike any other in the industry.  By varying the type and adjusting the positioning of the exclusive platform, Soft Play has been able to create an exciting new form of vertical climbing mazes verses traditional flat forms.  The undulating forms challenge the users in both body strength and coordination as they maneuver through the maze getting higher and higher as they climb.

 Available in multiple colors and configurations for addition to most any play system Soft Play offers or as a sole entertainment activity the Wave Maze is a unique twist on the vertical climb.

Cameron Run Playground by Soft Play

Wishing to offer the community of Alexandria a new and versatile play attraction, project managers at Cameron Run envisioned an addition that would complement their existing waterpark and extend the summer season into the spring and fall. “We were looking to make a big impact,” says Blythe Russian, director of Great Waves Waterpark. “We liked the idea of an addition with no water, no lifeguards, no chemicals, yet one that delivers an impressive feature to the waterpark and can serve many guests at one time.” The Great Waves committee wanted to expand the park’s “dry play” reach and appeal to children ages 2-12. They knew that more variety would bring area residents back to visit the park more often.

After an extensive proposal process, Great Waves hired Soft Play to design the Great Waves playground because of their experience with outdoor play structures and creative approach to theming. Russian says that the team wanted a company that would work with them on developing the right product to meet their expectations. In the end, Soft Play offered the best play feature options and theming elements.  “It was an enormous undertaking, a large part of Soft Play’s business comes from the Quick Service Restaurant market,” said Win Cook, Sales Support Manager at Soft Play.  “This project incorporated all of our key components, from conceptual planning to build the largest frame in our company history.” Soft Play presented a Tropical Beach theme and created a special waterpark mascot, Sunny the Sand shark, to play along with the summertime ambiance.

As one of Soft Play’s largest public sector projects to date, the Great Waves playground showcases the company’s most advanced technological building methods, particularly the use of Soft Contained Play Systems with the exclusive Dura Frame System. The Great Waves project was designed to reduce the amount of wear as seen on items found in earlier generations of soft contained playgrounds and offer lower long-term maintenance and repair costs for their customers and operators. This technology delivers a convenient, easy to manage through the use of Tuffnet barrier panels and plastic extrusions on vertical posts. Tuffnet panels are framed in a plastic extrusion as well as 3.5” columns, as opposed to the traditional 2” pipe with post padding. The sturdier building base fortifies a taller playground structure such as this unit, which rises as tall as 30 feet at some points. Soft Play is the only playground manufacturer in the industry to build with the Dura Frame design.

The play area features several slides, including a 32-foot long Triple Slide and four Spiral Slides.  One of the Spiral Slides offers a spectacular ride, descending all the way from the top of the 30-foot climbing tower structure.  This structure also has an adult-friendly climbing space in the middle, allowing parents to play with their children.  This same feature also allows Great Waves staff to easily inspect and perform routine maintenance such as daily cleaning of the playground. The toddler area offers a protected play area for smaller kids as well as a comfortable seating area for parents.  The area is shaded to keep kids and parents comfortable and to protect tots’ sensitive skin from sunburns.

Soft Play spruced up the Surfer theme with a custom color palate, tropical thatching, shades, and special 3D Sunny the Sand shark as well as tropical/surfer graphics. “The play structure can be seen from Eisenhower Road – a major road so it provides great curb appeal,” says Russian. “We love the fact that there are interactive pieces to this play feature: the sit-n-spin, the wobble hopper, the clean machine, the car, the beach ball, and the rock wall. There will be hours of entertainment for our families.” Russian predicts that the new play structure will be a popular attraction for corporate events and family reunions.

Ken Schober, Vice President and General Manger of Soft Play and Little Tikes say he couldn’t have been happier with the final product. “We believe that the exposure will provide future opportunities for us at other regional parks which have water play and see the benefit in broadening their appeal with some dry play attractions.”

Always challenging ourselves with new activites has yielded yet another great active play event by Soft Play. The Hover Rings add both balance and coordination skills development to the mix. Traversing through organic, pivoting rings without touching the platforms below is quite the challenge for new visitors to the Soft Play playground systems.

Brad Hobday, Engineering Mgr says, “The biggest challenge was designing the organic shape while fitting the play area framing while also meeting the safety standards. ASTM is always part of our design process.”

Molded in durable plastic, suspended by coated cables and available in 17 bright colors, the Hover Rings makes for a long lasting active play event addition to any play system.

• Children’s Pastors Conference
  January 11-14, 2012 Orlando FL
• YMCA
  February 15-18, 2012 San Antonio TX
• WWC
  April 23-26, 2012 Las Vegas NV
• NFA
  Nov 5-9, 2012  Las Vegas NV
• WFX
  Nov 9-11, 2011
  Dallas TX
• IAAPA
  Nov 15-18, 2011
  Orlando FL

His Hands Church

Faith-based organizations are looking for ways to appeal to more people as they compete with many other activities for the attention of parents and their children. Many congregations are adding services like baby-sitting and supervised play to remove the burden from single and working parents.

“Churches are realizing they are in the entertainment business,” says Doug Dreyer, Soft Play’s US Sales Manager. “They are competing for people’s attention, trying to get them off the couch and into the church.”

Dreyer says Soft Play is increasingly receiving proposal request from churches because they see the benefit of using playgrounds to draw in children.

“Children are great recruiters for the church. If they are having fun at the church, their parents are more likely to bring them,” Dreyer says. “And, when they go back home or to school and start talking about the cool playground at their church, the other kids want to go too.”

Dreyer says that Soft Play has developed playgrounds with Biblical themes that teach as well as provide activities to get the kids moving and using their imaginations.

Testing Out The Soft Play Triple Slide

Have you ever been part of a focus group? It’s too bad that you are probably too old to be a member of a Soft Play focus group.

“We do a lot of focus groups with kids – show them ideas or visuals to get their feedback on components we have been thinking about, “ says Brad Hobday, Soft Play’s Engineering Supervisor. “We ask them questions about what kinds of things they would like to play on. And then we make prototypes and bring some kids in to see how they play on it.”

Hobday says they once worked with McDonald’s to build a full-size unit and brought in kids to try it out. They videotaped it so they could review it later and determine what was good and what might not be working as expected.

“Kids always surprise you,” he says. “They will find ways to play with something that you had not considered, and sometimes it is not a safe way. And we say to ourselves, ‘that was so obvious – how did we not think of that?’ ” That’s why we go the extra step to gain valuable insight by watching children actively playing on our equipment.

Kids just seem to sit around in front of the TV or computer these days, and partially because of that, childhood obesity is on the rise. According to a new survey, “Nearly one-third of children age 10 to 17 in the United States were overweight as of 2007, and roughly half those kids qualified as obese.”

This trend prompted Soft Play to introduce its Get Active, Have Fun concept.

“There has been a big shift in our business since we instituted this philosophy,” says Soft Play’s Win Cook, Sales Support & Technical Services Manager. “We’ve added more active components like tubes, slides and climbs. These components changed the look of our playgrounds and the way children play in them.”

Cook says that the new components, which even allow adults the ability to play with the kids, are more difficult to design.

Playgrounds of days gone by were metal slides and jungle gyms. Soft Play came along and the evolution of playgrounds began with the addition of plastic tubes, cubes and climbing elements.

“We developed our Get Active, Have Fun philosophy to encourage more interactive play,” says Brad Hobday, Soft Play’s Engineering Supervisor. “Instead of just having small places to climb through and slides, we wanted to offer them the opportunity for more challenging, contained play.”

Soft Play’s Nikolai Ugrinsky says the get active concept attacks what is missing in childhood development – physical challenges.

“Kids just sit and sit and sit,” says Ugrinsky, Soft Play’s CAD Supervisor. “They aren’t moving, so we wanted to get them moving up and down, over and under. Our playgrounds give them challenges to improve their balance, upper body strength, and cardio.”

Experts have concluded that children who regularly engage in active play are more likely to be happy, physically fit and possess superior verbal and social skills. At Soft Play, we like the idea that we are helping kids grow into better-adjusted and healthier young adults.

Wackyball Room from Soft Play

Twelve years ago Brad Hobday, Soft Play’s Engineering Supervisor, was a development engineer with Frigidaire. He had a young daughter who loved playgrounds, and Brad began to notice they all seemed to be made by Soft Play.

“I thought it might be neat to work at a place designing playgrounds instead of appliances,” says Brad. “I applied and got the job. Initially, I was a design engineer, designing playground components, which are the building blocks of a playground.”

According to Brad, an engineer’s job at Soft Play requires a delicate balance, “you want to build something the kids will find fun, but you also have to make sure they are safe on the playground components. You want to eliminate serious injury and the best way to do that is to reduce fall heights – falls are responsible for the most injuries on a playground. We’ve reduced fall heights with our contained play systems, while still allowing the kids to have fun.”

Because contained play is unique, Brad says Soft Play worked with ASTM to develop standards for the components used in contained play systems. “Safety is a big issue – our customers and their patrons demand it. But you still have to make sure safe play is fun play.”

He shoots for the win and the crowd goes wild! Get a real basketball experience in Soft Play’s new contained Basketball Arena. It’s great for active play in children’s areas that don’t have the space or height for a full-size court. The space efficient three-sided design can fit into a corner of any kid’s area as a standalone item or in conjunction with a contained play system.

Only 6’6″ wide by 9’6″ long by 12′ high, the arena offers realistic basketball play with a regulation rim and backboard, ball holder and mini-hoops within a 3 sided perforated metal enclosure.