DIY Playgrounds by Cas Holman

How cool is this?! Cas Holman, a professor of Industrial Design at RISD is the inventor and designer of Do It Yourself Playground Kits. I found her through the STEAM initiative, which is a RISD backed national program to incorporate Art and Design into STEM programs (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics). To quote the website, "artists and scientists both ask big questions; designers and engineers both provide inspired solutions. Together they are more powerful than apart."

Cas Holman is a really exciting example of someone working within both worlds. She got her undergraduate degree in Feminist Studies and Fine Arts, and her Masters in 3D design from Cranbrook, which was once my wet dream grad school. She now creates interactive play tools for children in which "the act of playing and playing and building is the goal, not the finished product," which introduces kids to an engaging medley of design and engineering.  They're provided with the raw ingredients (which include boards with holes in them, rope, pulleys and wing bolts) and encouraged to entirely create their own space. She has created the High Line Children’s Workyard Kit, Imagination Playground Blocks, and Pop Up Adventure Playgrounds, as well as interactive hand held toys. After looking into how much fun these children are having building their own playgrounds, I am not ashamed to proclaim that I would very much like to join them!