This week a group of second year students from a range of communications media courses at Taylor's University, Malaysia descended on Bristol. The group is visiting Bristol as part of the University of the West of England’s global study partnership with Taylor's, which has been in place since 2004. Over the next two weeks - amidst a packed schedule of workshops and site visits – the students will be collecting and developing material and ideas for a live brief around the theme of 'Play'.

To kick start their two weeks in the UK, the students were invited to a workshop held in the Pervasive Media Studio. Drawing on the Watershed’s Playable City theme, the first day began with a presentation by Verity McIntosh, Studio Producer, who asked the students to consider how playful interactions might be used to challenge and possibly change the way we inhabit our environment. Once filled with inspiration, and supplied with pipe cleaners and Play-Doh, students were asked to design fantasy projects that aimed to encourage city residents to engage with public spaces. They were split into four groups and using randomly selected environments and target groups, were asked to consider creative possibilities for creating playful interactions.

Faced with the task of designing a project for the visually impaired to be located on a beach, Group A devised a lifejacket system that aimed to give more independence to the user. During their feedback session the group was encouraged to shift their focus from assistance to agency and empowerment.  The result was Black Out - a range of sensory games, which could be played by anyone but called for players to use all their senses, except sight, to solve various puzzles.

Group B, designing for teenagers in parks, drew inspiration from Bristol’s graffiti scene and one of the Watershed’s previous projects, Light Up Bristol. After originally discussing the idea of graffiti-able trees, the group moved on to the idea of Grounded - an interactive drawing board that could be engaged with directly or through an app. The city’s doodles would then be projected onto nearby buildings, nicely blending the park space with the surrounding area.

The risk of falling asleep whilst commuting was the main concern of another group. Vibrating tickets, a variety of games and even a silent disco carriage, all made their way into the group’s discussions but it was in tunnels that they found their niche. They proposed a game for commuters, which used motion sensors and projectors mounted on trains in order to project an interactive game on tunnel walls.

The final group were asked to consider how families might interact in schools and universities. They decided to focus on Taylor’s lakeside campus and began by looking at installing underwater slides. In the afternoon session they developed The Water Prison, a submerged structure that housed a range of games that teams would play in order to raise the platform and escape from a watery doom.

Throughout the day the students demonstrated a growing awareness of potential to challenge our perceptions of technology and environment through play. They pushed each other during the final feedback session, in which the practicalities of each idea were fiercely questioned. This was no doubt helped by the fact that Clare Reddington, iShed’s Director, asked them to imagine that they were presenting their idea to a funding body. Once they had made their case to their peers, the students voted for their favourite. It was a close run race with Grounded, the interactive drawing board, winning by a single vote.

With a jam-packed couple of weeks ahead of them, we look forward to seeing what else the students come up with during the rest of their visit with UWE.