What to Expect at Future Park

It’s absolutely incredible how technology and art have evolved to such an extent now that children are now able to create something and interact with it in a digital format. We first had some exposure to this with Playdoh Touch (where you scan your Playdoh creation with an app that comes to life) but Future Park takes this to a whole new level where many kids can play with their drawings in a setting filled with light and art. Cape Town has had the exhibition, now it is Johannesburg’s turn. We went to this exhibit on Sunday and I would like to share what is on offer.

Light Ball orchestra

Nicky had fun pushing these balls around and watching them change colour. I think it’s also a really good metaphor for how one act can affect many around them. The overhead ball communicates with the other balls – touch it and the surrounding balls are affected, changing the colour of the entire space!

2. Sketch Town Paper craft

Nicky loves vehicles so this was a lot of fun for him. He coloured in a red car and was thrilled to see it pop out (after being scanned) and drive along the road. When you touched the car it moved too. The buildings move and jump around as well. Apparently there are 3D papercrafts too but we must have missed that! The other tip I must mention for taking pictures is this: don’t use a flash. You’ll see that the pics of Nicky’s car didn’t come out too well because of this.

3. Sketch Aquarium

Nicky drew an orange sea horse and I drew an octopus with eight legs. We watched how they swam and bounced up and down in the water.

4. Connecting Block Town

This was really a lot of fun. What you do is move wooden blocks to connect vehicle paths. So the green buildings connect the train tracks, the blue cones connect rivers, and the red buildings connect roads. What’s also super fun is that if you move the clouds around the planes fly inbetween them and Nicky enjoyed this activity very much.

5. Little People Table

Here little people interact with objects that you move around them. I also liked the raining clouds and showers of light on the table.

6. Genius Hopscotch

Jump on shapes and watch their reaction. Nicky was a bit cautious and playful with this activity first, skipping around, but later on jumped on the shapes firmly with both feet. He really enjoyed it though and went back and forth a few times.

7. Story of Time

Stories emerge using touch. I saw a lot of animals there.

8. Shop

You can put your drawing on a T-shirt, bag, pencil case or mug. We chose to put Nicky’s car and my octopus on two different mugs. Only snag is that it takes about an hour for them to do this. We just went outside and had Steers for lunch while Nicky jumped on a nearby jumping castle.