SAFETY

   Parental concern for the safety and well being of their children is a driving force behind the development of supervised indoor play and, ultimately, the development of soft contained play systems. Supervised indoor play offers parents an opportunity to provide their children the recreation and social interaction they want and need without the concerns that their children are being subjected to unhealthy influences or other risks. As the population of our nation continues to grow, more and more families will be seeking these opportunities.
   
    Soft contained play systems are the ultimate in providing our children with safe, secure, play environments. Every major supplier of soft playgrounds in the US has paid a great deal of attention to making their play structures as safe as possible. Unfortunately, for some suppliers this has meant imposing limitations on children that severely limit the opportunity to play. The result of this strategy has been to remove many of the aspects of challenge and recreation that are the very opportunities we want our children to have; PlaySmart has gone a different direction. While we recognize the realities of our legal system and the need to prevent injuries regardless of fault, we steadfastly refuse to deny our children the opportunity to experience the benefits of recreational play and to have fun. We have looked at the activities children enjoy, promote growth, physical fitness and social skills, and have found ways to make participating in those opportunities safer. While I personally believe our children should have the opportunity to run as fast as they can, jump off high places (so they can learn that sprained ankles or bruises are possible results), and to generally be rambunctious, this is not the territory of the soft playground. This doesn’t mean that we have to create tame playgrounds that have put the clamps on any real opportunity for recreation and fun.

   Certain rules have to apply if soft playgrounds are to perform their role in society of providing a safe environment for children to experience growth through play. The velocity at which children can travel must be controlled because they will run into each other. The distance that a child can fall must be limited because they will climb as high as they are allowed to do. Surfaces must be impact absorbing because children will fall in awkward manners. The aforementioned are just realities of children’s play. The only way to totally eliminate the occasional bump is to stop the play. PlaySmart has decided that we will let children play. We let them swing and climb and bounce and explore and face challenges. But we are going to do it in a responsible manner that draws upon our many years experience in the design, manufacture and installation of soft contained play systems.

   In a PlaySmart playground, every surface that a child can impact is either padded or designed to be impact absorbing. Our patented Tensioned Web Flooring System is so impact absorbing that you can drop an egg from over 20’ and it will bounce when it hits the webbing of our floors. Children are never made to crawl through hard plastic tubes so there is no need for kneepads in a PlaySmart playground. The steel structure of our playgrounds is covered with Tuff Pad post padding. The reason we use Tuff Pad is that it has an extremely durable coating on it that protects it from degradation as well as protects its appearance. We use a specially molded urethane component to protect our thresholds because molded urethane is the longest lasting “soft” material available.

   In a PlaySmart playground there are no metal objects protruding into the play space. There are no metal objects that can become detached and make their way into the play space. Since Ball Bins have somewhat lost favor we do not install many of them but, when we do, it is a Ball Bin that has a woven web floor to allow objects such as hair berets, pencils and other objects that children sometimes carry into the playground, pass through to the ground, outside of the play space.

   We design our playgrounds so children are constantly changing elevations, going around turns, or otherwise having to “maneuver” through the playground. This prevents them from running fast, as they could if they were provided with unobstructed open distances. We typically put ceilings on our play Events at 84” or less. This prevents children from being able to climb to any significant height off of the floor. One of the major causes of injuries in soft playgrounds is that worn parts are not being replaced as soon as they should be. PlaySmart has recognized that many owners just simply will not replace an item as soon as it wears out, particularly if the part wears out before the owner feels he or she got full economic value from the part. This is an area where PlaySmart has benefited from our philosophy of never compromising on the quality of materials or workmanship that goes into our playgrounds. PlaySmart components just do last the time that they should. In the rare event that the component doesn’t perform up to expectations, PlaySmart makes it clear to our customers that the item will be replaced at no cost to them. Even if a component is designed properly and is of high quality, the potential for problems exist if the component isn’t installed properly. This is the reason that PlaySmart has always installed our own playgrounds, which is important for three reasons. One, we are sure that the installation was performed correctly. Two, we avoid the conflict of interest inherent in using installers whose goal is to get the job done quickly so they can move on to the next job rather than having their top priority be getting the playground installed correctly, as it should be. Three, PlaySmart depends on the feedback of our installers to notify us of any issues or difficulties they encountered. This allows PlaySmart to react quickly to rectify problems. It also helps us to continually improve our product designs.

   PlaySmart is totally dedicated to creating the finest play systems on this planet. Part of doing so means that we must be ever vigilant in our quest to provide the safest possible play opportunities for children. We believe that no other manufacturer of soft playgrounds can say that their playgrounds are safer, except for possibly those manufacturers that have taken the “play” out of their playgrounds, something that PlaySmart will never do.