People at Play Archive

Since last summer, you may have noticed small groups of millennials walking briskly toward landmarks surrounded by people staring intently at their smartphone screens. Every now and then, cries of delight or disdain erupt from the gatherers. “Oh good, a Snorlax!” someone murmurs appreciatively. “Just another Rattata!” another person groans. These folks aren’t speaking in code—they’re playing the massively popular, record-breaking, augmented-reality mobile game Pokémon GO.
The “Pocket Monsters” franchise has been around since 1996, when Nintendo released the first two […]

Continue Reading about Gotta Catch ‘Em All! Published on:
July 12, 2017

“Stop playing with that ball inside the house! You’re going to break something—take it outside!” Those are familiar phrases that I heard when I was younger, and I am sure many other children can relate. What helped alter parental attitudes towards indoor ball play? Well, that would be the introduction of the Nerf ball, a four-inch foam ball officially marketed as “the world’s first indoor ball.”
According to Tim Walsh in Timeless Toys: Classic Toys and the Playmakers Who Created Them, […]

Continue Reading about Nerf Ball Published on:
June 23, 2017

In 2015 David Howe, an avid chess enthusiast in Rochester, donated 40 different variations of chess sets to The Strong’s permanent collection. Howe’s gift included 4-Way Chess for four players, 3 Man Chess in the Round, Grand Chess, Knightmare Chess, and Stealth Chess to name just a few. A chess purist might ask, why tamper with a classic? But within his donation, a chess set caught my eye and attracted other museum staff members’ attention: The Official Star Trek Tridimensional […]

Continue Reading about Attention Trekkies: Star Trek Tridimensional Chess! Published on:
June 2, 2017

It seems that now, perhaps more than ever, people everywhere are constantly on the go. Traveling to work or school, the gym, or the grocery store—the list goes on and on. We eat on the run, drink coffee on the run, and even get our information on the run thanks to smartphones that make emails, news, and calls available wherever we are. Today, many folks would tell you that life on the go is hectic but necessary. For a moment, […]

Continue Reading about Good to Go: Playful Ways to Get Around Published on:
May 26, 2017

Growing up in Pennsylvania, my parents frequently looked for family excursions within a few hours’ drive from our home near Pittsburgh. Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, became a frequent destination for the Novakovics, thanks in part to my younger brothers. Both Bobby and Billy loved reading the Thomas the Tank Engine series by Reverend W. Awdry; watching the PBS show Shining Time Station; and playing with metal Thomas & Friends train cars (which feel worse to step on than Lego bricks, FYI). […]

Continue Reading about “All Aboard!” for Fun with Trains Published on:
May 17, 2017

I remember my first yo-yo: a blue Duncan Imperial. I was 7 years old and had saved up enough of my allowance to buy it. The drive to the store felt like an eternity. When I finally opened the package, the bright, shiny yo-yo smelled of plastic and felt as smooth as ice—it was perfect. Back at home, I spent hours in the driveway playing with my new toy. Over the next few weeks, I continued to practice and realized […]

Continue Reading about Out of this World: A Brief History of the Yo-Yo Published on:
May 8, 2017

One of the great pleasures of working at The Strong is that every exhibit features a time portal back to childhood, most of which hold innumerable portals. No sooner does a visitor exclaim, “Oh! I had one of those when I was a kid!,” at the sight of Teddy Ruxpin before she is confronted by the Ms. Pac-Man arcade game—the recipient of most of her allowance as an adolescent. The museum holds the power to make adults remember their childhood […]

Continue Reading about When I Was a Kid: Adult Memories of Play Published on:
April 28, 2017

Think about some of the “must-have” toys you’ve seen (or even procured) over the last few years. How about the playful robotic dog Zoomer? Or the small, colorful, hooked building balls called Bunchems? Or the great craze of 2016, Hatchimals (described by some as a cross between a Furby and a Tamagotchi)? These massively popular products are all from Canadian toy giant Spin Master, which has been developing fun, innovative toys for the past two decades. Founded in 1994, the […]

Continue Reading about Spin Master: Putting Their Own “Spin” on Toys since 1994 Published on:
April 19, 2017

I first became interested in the increase of plastic in children’s toys through my own daughter’s toys, especially since my undergrad degree was in Environment and Health, with a fourth year focus on Bisphenol A (also known as BPA) in baby bottles. Throughout my Masters studies, I focused on the central question of why we keep what we do, how we make those decisions, and the ways in which we’ve come to value or devalue certain things. I was struck […]

Continue Reading about Postwar Plastic Playthings: Affordability, Resources and Military Surplus Published on:
March 31, 2017