In 2022 Early Start invited attendees to celebrate our inaugural Festival of Play. In 2023 the festival is back, but with a technological twist.

On Tuesday March 7, 2023, 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 (or free for members!)

All activities on the day will be facilitated by Discovery Space Educators and Early Start Researchers from the Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child!

• Tiny ‘Tech’ Tuesday: continuing with our very popular, normal Tiny Tuesday program, just with a technology twist! 

• Digital Art in creARTivity: come play with BeeBots and Edison Robots to create your own artwork! 

• Multimodal Storytime: Join us for an interactive story time where we will explore multimodal texts (looking at how we communicate with written & oral language, audio, gestural and spatial) and encourage you to create your own digital text!

• The Great Discovery Space Treasure Hunt: want to go on a digital adventure? Make your way to our Encounters area to talk to Early Start researchers and go on a range of different digital treasure hunts through the Discovery Space!

• Digital Play Groups: will be facilitated in the Children’s Technology Play space throughout the day!

  • 9:00 – 10:00: Join the team as they use Augmented Reality to explore the Great Barrier Reef and Forests, AND nature table with the Digital Microscopes!

  • 10:15 – 11:00: Come navigate robots through mazes and explore how we can make robots move!

  • 11:15 – 12:00: Come play with balloon rockets and water balloons – exploring properties of balloons through slow motion video and photography!

• Keep your eyes out for pop-up digital play opportunities throughout the space as well:

  • 9:30 – 10:30: Play time with digital toys in The Campsite

  • 10:00 -12:30: Vox Pop in the Puppet Theatre

  • 10:30 – 12:00: Creating Music in Light Sound Action

  • 10:00 – 12:00: UOW Science Space team in the STEAM Room

  • 11:00 – 11:45: Hide and Seek (with a difference!) in Discovery Gardens

We strongly encourage pre-booking online, as walk-ins are not guaranteed and dependent on capacity. We also encourage use of public transport on the day, as the University campus will be a hive of activity during the start of classes for 2023!

• Take a look at the full program here
• Take a look at where everything is on the venue map