World’s first smart trampoline benefits child development — and is fun to boot

THE humble trampoline just went next level, thanks to an interactive gaming system that benefits child development.

The humble trampoline has undergone a new-age makeover! Picture: Springfree Trampoline Australia/Supplied.

DID you know that 81 per cent of Australian kids aged 5-17, don’t meet the recommended physical activity guidelines of 60 minutes daily?

A sad fact of the digital age is our kids spend most of their time glued to screens rather than engaged in good old-fashioned child’s play.

Luckily, the folks at Springfree Trampoline Australia have found a way to combat this.

They’ve developed the world’s very first smart trampoline, that incorporates an interactive gaming system, called Tgoma.

Mrs Leanne Fretwell, Managing Director of Springfree Trampoline, told news.com.au: “It’s really about getting kids outdoors and active again, and keeping them interested for long periods of time. We wanted to change the isolating and sedentary behaviour of screen time by making it active on the trampoline.”

So, how does it work?

“What we’ve done with the Tgoma is take our existing trampoline and place four sensors onto the mat. The sensors take feedback on every jump and feed it back to the user’s tablet device — either iOS or Android — via Bluetooth. Really the body acts as the controller. They don’t just sit on a trampoline with a pretty game and watch it, they actually have to jump around. The sensors will take that feedback and that’s what drives the game forward.”

Sounds like a lot of fun right? It gets better. In addition to improving fitness, the trampoline also benefits a child’s mental development.

Dr Nicole Grant, Gateway Therapies Director and Occupational Therapist explained: “As Tgoma provides a multi-sensory approach to learning, kids are likely to benefit more from interacting with digital devices while jumping on a trampoline than if they were just using an iPad.”

Mrs Fretwell has seen this play out within her own family.

She said, “I’m a mum. I have a six-year-old son, and we have a Tgoma at home. One of the features within [the Tgoma] is setting where the tablet sits on the trampoline, depending on where the sun is. One day, I saw him go onto the trampoline. He hadn’t done that before, but seeing him work out that he was running things oppositely and going, “OK so the game wants me to do this, but when I jump it’s upside down so this is now what I need to do,” I was pleasantly surprised. All of those cognitive skills, the alertness, the motor neurons that are all firing while this is happening is just incredible.”

The Tgoma gaming system appeals to a vast age group. To date, there are nine signature apps on the platform.

Mrs Fretwell said, “That’s constantly growing. They include everything from, young children games that look at exciting colours and noises, then you’ve got one that focuses on maths, and of course more game-based setups, which involve chasing or jumping on something to get points.”

Sounds like fun for the whole family!

Springfree featuring Tgoma will be available in Australia in October and can currently be

preordered online at www.springfreetrampoline.com.au/tgoma.

Originally published as World’s first smart trampoline benefits child development — and is fun to boot