CMC Lines Up New Interactive Exhibition Playground

SHEFFIELD: The Children’s Media Conference (CMC) has unveiled a brand-new interactive digital exhibition, Playground, that will run alongside this year’s event.

From July 5 to 10, Sheffield’s Site Gallery will feature a free exhibition of art works where youngsters can play and interact. There will be a dozen exhibits in addition to a Maker Room, where kids can create sculptures and scenes using Electro Dough Kits by Technology Will Save Us, and then bring them to life with light and sound. Playground, sponsored by Dubit, is aimed at 5- to 12-year-old children.

With Lost My Name’s Blinkies, a drawing can be placed over a phone or tablet, which will turn it into an animation. The Cardboard Arcade, by Unstable King, is a portable pop-up video-game arcade. Sago Sago’s Fairy Doors is a hide-and-seek game for preschoolers, while Google Cardboards are headsets that use smartphones to view mini-VR games. The Avaki Twins from Vai Kai are wooden toys connected to each other using Bluetooth technology. There will also be Flashing Cards by Bare Conductive, which features conductive paint.

Sharna Jackson, curator of Playground, commented: “I’m so pleased to bring this interactive digital show with works from across the world to Sheffield. The show is focused on works that are a bridge between the physical and digital, the ‘real’ and the virtual, the practical and seemingly impossible. There’s much more to digital for kids than seemingly mind-numbing apps and Playground hopes to give all visitors a taste of what’s possible.”

The CMC will take place in Sheffield from July 5 to 7. This year’s Learning Sessions are Culture for Kids Goes Digital (July 6 at 11 a.m.), Innovation in Education (July 6 at 2:10 p.m.), Too Cool for School (July 7 at 9:30 a.m.), Minecraft University (July 7 at 12:45 p.m.) and Creative Curriculum—Lost or Not? (July 7 at 2:10 p.m.). Session speakers include Kathryn Box of Tate Kids, Adam Clarke of Minecraft Artist, Justin Cooke of Big Clever Learning and Matt Parkes of LEGO.