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Comment by swimfar | Hacker News Reader

It doesn't look like they are building risk into the playgrounds, as much as they are building the feeling of risk. which isn't necessarily a bad thing. This seems like a compromise that should be seen as better, or at least acceptable to both extremes of parents.

"The maximum fall height in the Triitopia structure’s spiderweb is 1.8 metres." That's not a risky fall, if you're falling onto a rope net.

Also, "The Triitopia tower is encased with boards and netting to ensure no child can take a tumble from a height above three metres." Kids used to climb on the outside and on top of tall playground structures like that. But they're making sure this much more difficult to attempt. This is not a criticism, just my observations.

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However they say that some broken bones are acceptable, which are more than just a “feeling of risk”.

Risk is likelihood X consequence, and there is also the distinction of actual risk vs perceived risk. They are manipulating the four variables; control actual consequence, maximize perceived consequence, maximize perceived likelihood, and moderate actual likelihood.

Both are types of risk IMO, and as children come to recognize the actual risk through experience they will come to recalibrate their perceived risk. Ideally this makes them better at perceiving risk in the future.

I wouldn’t want to fall 1.8m and land awkwardly, even if it might not permanently injure me.

Kids strength-to-weight ratio is drastically improved. My youngest fell that far when he was nearly 3, and was merely annoyed about it. An 80kg adult who gets unlucky falling that distance is headed for the hospital.

As someone who broke their arm as a kid falling off monkey bars, I can say that this is very case by case.

A kid that can get onto monkey bars has a much worse strength/weight than a two year old.

i wonder if it will be discovered as fun to "base-jump" into the net

Not really, as you will notice and learn that the ropes are damn stiff and have metal ties to form the grid.

In the US, my experience with this style of rope structure is that the ropes are actually steep cables encases in fiber or nylon rope sheathing. There is no stretch, so landings are immediate (unlike falling onto an actual rope net).

I think I've seen that too; why are they made this way? Durability? Supporting more people's weight at once?

Same shit as some commercial residential developments here in Germany have: wrong metrics.

Like, when the builders' metric is "must last for 20 years at minimal maintenance effort and legal risk", you get radically different results (barely fulfilling the legal definition of playground, no one uses it) than if the metric is "out of the X potential users in the 200m surrounding the playground, Y% use it frequently". The latter costs more money in construction and upkeep.

I was told that the cables reduce the potential for stretch over time, and this is important to maintain safety tolerances (“space x cannot exceed size y because otherwise a child can…”)

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