To simulate a breaking or falling motion while still maintaining a safe environment, the design focuses on requiring the user to rotate the bar akin to a hamster wheel. This adds an element of physical difficulty somewhere between regular monkey bars and American Ninja Warrior. Naturally, if you fall off, you fail the room.
These sketches show the bars and a simple support structure. Springs are included in an attempt to provide an added element of difficulty.
A wooden structure proved sufficient for comfortably supporting individuals up to 200lbs.
The rotating bar consists of an interior dowell 1-1/4” thick and outer dowels of 1-1/8” supported by 1x4’s, while the support structure was made entirely of 2x4’s.
Initial tests were conducted at ground level between two stools as depicted which provided enough space to safely hover inches above the ground.
Testing was completed on an existing playground so avoid having to build an entire monkey bar rig.
Through testing, it was discovered that the springs did not have any effect on the level of difficulty and in fact presented a safety issue, resulting in their elimination from the design.
The bars were about 10in from the center, meaning the user must reach 14in to the next bar. This requires the ability to essentially do a pull up and then briefly hold it with one arm. Only one tester was able to do it with limited success. The ability to add or remove bars, thus changing the distance to the next bar, allows the difficulty to be scalable.
As far as actual game-play, harder bars will be worth more on the scaled points system. To avoid gaming the system, all bars up to the chosen difficulty must be rotated each time you play the room. There will also be a timer to discourage one person from doing all the work for a single group.
