Frog Tipping

Frog Tipping is a playful physical installation, originally developed for Plug in and Play 2024.  It's about clearing a river of litter, using magnetic fishing rods. Players traverse the river by sliding along the riverbank (pews) or hopping along lily pads, lifting various coloured pieces of litter out the water. Without falling in, players must then navigate their way back to a bridge at one end of the play area, to place their litter in their team's bucket. The game supports up to 8 players split across 4 teams.

This installation was produced for Plug In and Play, a nature themed festival throughout Rotherham town centre in November 2024. Frog Tipping was designed to be a simple, tech-free installation with an approachable, durable, and easy to run format. The featured space for the installation was Rotherham Minster, so we also designed Frog Tipping to respect the space it was hosted in, with a positive message of environmentalism, working together and having fun!

The game was playtested with local schools then installed in Rotherham Minster for 3 days, during which there was only one minor repair required for one of the rods. The straightforward format made staff onboarding easy, and we actively encouraged those running Frog Tipping to experiment with the layout of lily pads, distribution of litter or even the rules of the experience!

Credits:

Design and fabrication: Alex Johansson

Production, research and documentation: David Hayward

Exhibition Sites:

2024

- Plug in and Play, Rotherham -  31st Oct - 2nd Nov

More coming soon!