Gotha Splashhh
Rain puddle discovery app
The main idea of this project was to find a situation where children try to negotiate play. One day it has been raining heavily in Gothenburg, Sweden, and I had to be out in the city that that do run some errands.
I observed two situations, where the children negotiated play. In the first one, a child jumped into a puddle next to a road and mother quicky pulled him away because it was dangerous. Secondly, two boys were jumping in puddles, and their dad was frustrated because they were making them slower. With Gotha splahhh I wanted to embrace the concept of jumping into rain puddles and rain play in general (and get parents on board as well!).
In Gothenburg, puddles are everywhere
therefore
negotiating situations are everywhere
The goal
Make something that would encourage parents to participate in the activity and enjoy it.
This would result in a bonding activity between parent and child, they would feel supported and the memories would be made!
Design outcome
Mobile app + City Street Graphics
What would the app do?
- Information about events for parents connected to rain: e.g. outdoor play dates in Regnlekplatsen.
- A blog for parents to exchange ideas, talk about the fun they had when playing in the rain, and talk about nostalgic memories of puddle play.
- Archive for Public Play (reminds parents that it is fun)
- Accurate weather info for the city
- A map of fun puddles and hidden play graphics in the city (becomes visible only when it rains).
The app uses weather information and when the weather is nice, the app is locked, and we can not access it. It unlocks only when it is raining, which makes you go out in rainfall. The app consists of different districts of the city, and you must locate the puddles on a map within each. You can do this in combination with the floor graphics on the streets. The app tells you where you are currently standing, and you must grab the puddle icon to the location where you find your first puddle.
After that, you should follow the lines on the streets which lead you to your next puddle but there is a catch. There can be multiple lines leading to different directions, but you want to find as many puddles as possible in the limited time you have before the app locks again. At this point in the app, I implemented an augmented reality option, if you want to use it. All the lines lead to puddles, but the AR tells you the quickest way to finish one district.
Embedded in the app, there is also a feature to take a photo or a video of your jump that you can look at in a gallery later and is also visible to other players. It is a fun way to in a way compete or showcase to others how many jumps you have done.
The floor graphics are painted on the sidewalks on the streets of Gothenburg with hydrophobic paint that is not visible when dry but becomes visible only when it rains.
Their shape is simple, squiggly lines that offer more possibilities of use than just showing directions. You can walk on the line, hop from one to another, or try to balance hopping on it on your way to the puddle.
