Playgrounds of many kinds and sizes provide opportunities for children to engage in physical activity. A fantastic playground’s vivid colours and fascinating combinations may engage kids in ways they won’t find anywhere else, allowing them to let their thoughts run wild. While playgrounds have developed over time to add more safety and accessibility elements, any kid-approved play facility will have many of the same features.

Knowing what makes a playground excellent and what to look for when building a new site requires expanding your play equipment knowledge.

If you’ve not been to the playground in the next few years, you’ll note that some of your old classics have been changed or renovated to meet modern needs.

Because of new safety rules, several types of play equipment have fallen out of favour or terminology has become antiquated. Some types of equipment have been phased out entirely due to noncompliance with current safety regulations. However, just because safety regulations have changed will not really mean you won’t see any similar playground equipment on modern sites.

Merry-Go-Round

Merry-go-rounds also referred as carousels or roundabouts are a popular playground attraction that daredevils love to test. These enormous types of hardware allow kids to jump on and spin around as fast as they can by pushing against the ground to build speed. While this form of play equipment is still very prevalent, the word “merry-go-round” is no longer adequate to describe the various types of rotating playground equipment.

The United States Consumer Product Safety Commission’s (CPSC) Handbook for Playground Safety has specific standards for merry-go-rounds as well as other park favourites. These include outdoor swing sets, seesaws, and slides.

Seesaw

The teeter-totters, commonly known as teeter-totter, are another popular piece of play equipment. Conventional fulcrum teeter-totters must have a maximum angle of 25 degrees, according to the CPSC guidelines, and half car tires or other shock-absorbing components should be utilized to cushion impacts. The safest seesaw has a springy centre, which prevents one rider from landing hard if the other rider falls off.

Giant Stride

The CPSC does not suggest this piece of equipment, which hasn’t been seen in nearly half a century.

A tall pole is installed in the ground for the enormous stride. Cords with ladder-like bars dangle from the ceiling for children to hold. The concept is that kids grab the bars with their lives and run around as quickly as they can, occasionally “flying” or hanging above the floor while spinning. Aside from being inaccessible, the huge stride often results in children colliding with each other or the pole.

Monkey Bars

Monkey bars are simply a horizontal ladder elevated above the floor by upright poles in its most basic form. They let children to jump up and swing from bar to bar like chimps. Monkey bars were also a common element of bigger jungle gyms, allowing children to swing and climb in various directions.

While monkey bars are still popular in playgrounds around the world, the original design has been updated and improved in so many ways — they’re no longer merely a horizontal ladder — that more precise terminology is sometimes required to describe them. When you hear the term “ring climber,” you’re referring to one of the various monkey bar variations.