Balance beam

My daughter is nearly 3 years old now. When she was about 2yrs old, I noticed something very interesting. She had been barely walking for 15 months and now here she was, trying to balance herself on a narrow divider that divides the garden and the walking area. The divider was just as wide as her feet and about one foot tall (one foot is a lot when your whole height is ~85cm). She did not progress much before she called out for my help, but the courage that she demonstrated in just going ahead and trying it out put me into thought. I had to do something to let her be more adventurous, yet safe. Incidentally, Radhika (my better-half) had found a great carpenter. I quickly designed something that was inspired by the ramp walk obstacle in the obstacle coarse we had at school (It’s another of those Sainik School things that non-Ajeets may need more explanation on. Don’t bother). The carpenter quickly got on with his job, and in less than a week from conceptualisation we got this –

20170128185546_IMG_2023

The experiment proved very successful. Within a week, Anu could go end to end –

She fell innumerable number of times before getting to this stage, but thanks to some cheering, she kept trying. Once she mastered walking, as expected she started challenging herself; Running, turning around, jumping in place, jumping forward and a lot more. More importantly, the beam provided her a platform to fail over and over again, overcome her fear and succeed. For those who are interested in replicating the setup, the material used is Indian teak and here are the dimensions –

Beam Elevation
Beam – Elevation
Beam - Perspective
Beam – Perspective

Take care to round all corners. The one that we made is sturdy enough to support an 80Kg adult. Do test thoroughly before letting your kid try it.

 

Other posts in this series

  1. Balance beam (2017-January-28)
  2. Color Jump (2017-February-05)
  3. Balsa craft (2018-May-20)

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