Festival of Digital Play

A family-friendly day at the Early Start Discovery Centre

On Thursday 11 April 2024, Early Start Discovery Space and the Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child invites you to the Festival of Digital Play, a family-friendly day where research and play come together to inform and educate about the changing digital space and what it means for our children.

All activities and programs are FREE after general entry is paid to the Discovery Space (and of course free for members!). All activities on the day will be drop-in sessions open between 10am and 12pm and will be facilitated by Early Start Researchers from the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child and the Discovery Space team! Get ready for a huge range of play experiences, including:

Robot Rally: Race a robot around the speedway to get your fastest time! Select a robot to capture or protect your treasure.

Mechanical Marvels: Embark on an epic, problem-solving adventure through small world play. Elevate your play and support your child’s learning through creativity, engineering and storytelling!

Step into Space: Code your way through a space maze as you transform into a Robot, or an Astronaut, then step into Space!

All Aboard the Coding Train: Come and learn basic coding skills by helping our Lego people move across an interactive Lego landscape!

Small World Explorers: Come to the Pod and experience our natural world – from micro to macro – through immersive play. Use an interactive globe and microscopes, engaging in small world play to recreate icy cold polar regions and arid environments.

Storytails: Join us at The Campfire to share and capture stories. Let’s use digital technologies to read and listen to some stories, and tell our own using our voices, movement, sound and props!

Ozobot Maze: Join us at CreARTivity to explore Ozobots – draw a path with twists and turns, and watch our robots complete your aMAZEing challenges!

Pop Up Play: Come and join in our game of digital hide-and-seek in the garden, explore the Pyramids of Egypt, delve into the world of insects with digital microscopes, and make a bubble-burst wall mural!