h a l f b a k e r yRenovating the wheel
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playmats for wee small babies that can hardly sit up are immensely entertaining. they encourage baby to reach out and grab; helping them develop all the right muscles in the right places and stimulate hand and eye co-ordination not to mention teaching them cause and effect.
pinball playmats take this
amusement and education to a new level; baby sits propped up by bumpers wrapped in soft stuff (bumpers are the round knobs on a pinball machine - active ones push the ball away and passive ones don't).
when baby loses its sitting balance, they sway away & bounce back on the bumpers generating sounds of bells or whistles (or animal noises - or whatever) with flashing lights and thus providing a complete sensory experience so essential for neurological development.
as baby grows and develops and begins to be more dextrous & in the early stages of crawling, parents may like to add flippers (to the playmat obviously, not the baby) and perhaps some personal scoring system on a display board for the child to experience some early arithmetic.
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How big is this? Does it go on the floor or on a playchair? What substitutes for the ball? The baby as there are only two bumpers or the baby's hands as there are several little bumbers arrayed in front of the child besides the two holding them up? |
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playmats generally go on the floor I believe although there's no reason why it shouldn't go on any flat surface e.g. a bed. |
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it could double as a nappy (diaper) changing mat which would be fun I imagine. |
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Well,
if the mat itself is flat on the floor, and
if there are bumpers which are triggered by loss of sitting balance, and
if those bumpers are supposed to return the baby to something like a sitting-up position,
then the bumpers will have to be somewhat raised from the floor, unless you intend them to bump the baby really quite hard. So, we're talking about something considerably more three-dimensional than a normal pinball table, (let alone a normal baby mat). |
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Might it resemble a cluster of brightly-coloured 6" to 12" mushrooms? |
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yes, big bouncy mushrooms. |
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giving storage some consideration, the mat itself could be inflatable. |
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These could be placed in bars so that the infants can be given attention while the parents socialize. |
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heck no, the punters might be rough and tilt the thing or worse. |
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