Ball Track around Perimeter of Garage Room

Often those most interested in the ball track were the youngest kids, seemingly two to three years of age, with a few four or five year-olds in the mix. Of those observed interacting with the exhibit, most were a single kid with one or two accompanying parents. The younger kids often needed the parent’s assistance to figure out how to send off the balls; whereas, the fewer older kids seemed to quickly grasp the mechanism for raising the balls.

The youngest kids were often drawn in just by the presence of the colored balls in the cage at the base of the elevator in the center of the room. Many of the older kids who came over to engage with the exhibit seemed to do so after noticing a ball racing around the ceiling and finding where they came from. For these older kids, once the ball was let go into the track, they maintained interest in following it through its path around the room; however, many of the younger kids were simply delighted to have brought the ball all the way up to the ceiling and wanted to do that again instead of following it around the room. While this mechanism was simple to get started with, the decision point near the beginning of the track where the ball could go one direction or the other prompted at least one kid to try to send two balls up in quick succession to try to get one to follow each path. Since this didn’t work for him straight away, he tried to be creative and send two balls up at once; however, the second ball wouldn’t fit into the carriage, so he kept trying other methods to get a ball down both paths. Ultimately, this exhibit allows all kids who engage with it to experience autonomy in raising the ball, which, for some, was a reward in and of itself; but, for some who were really engaged, it allowed them to use their initiative to challenge themselves to explore alternative paths for the balls. Often the parents had to facilitate their kids in understanding exactly how to operate the pulley and, some of the smaller kids, help them reach the cable or pull it. Nonetheless, most kids appeared to feel like they were in control of the apparatus.

For this installation, there was a facilitator present in the room who occasionally came by to suggest yanking the cable when the ball got to the top to help release it if a kid was struggling; however, for the most part, the parent was sufficient to facilitate a kid’s exploration. The visibly constructed and raw-material aesthetic of the garage space was very much enhanced by the cable and pipe construction of this exhibit which wrapped around the entire room. Much like the other exhibits in the garage, the ball track is really focused on offering its users control of the movement of things through the space, allowing things like balls, cars, wheels, or parachutes to move all over under the user’s control.