Time for a Transport Takeover!

Hoverboards and helicopters; cable-cars and canoes: no transport is off the table in Platform’s new competitive card-game which strives to shine a spotlight on sustainability.

Earlier this year, members of the Platform team put forward an idea they had for a new game which explored the different factors one could – and should –consider when making choices around travel. They were inspired by the Terrific Time Travel workshop (one of the scheme’s core offerings) and wanted to create something which took strands of the learning from the workshops and tied them together in an accessible, fun, pocket-sized (for ease of travel) game.

An application was put into The Community Rail Network’s Community Rail Development Fund, with the hope of receiving enough financial support to have Platform-style icons designed for the cards, and to pay for them to be professionally printed. Having been successful in this application, the team set to work exploring categories, determining scores, designing game cards, commissioning icons and pulling together a first draft of the game.

In late November, the first draft was put to the test in an evening of games with children aged 8 to 12, with their feedback allowing the team to make final amendments to the cards, before sending them off to be printed.

Sets received, approved, and packaged, it was time to launch Transport Takeover and, in true Platform style, the launch took place with a group of 60 students and tied in with a train trip!

Year 7 students from Oasis Temple Quarter School in Bristol had already received a pre-travel workshop earlier in the term, so were well-prepared when they joined the Platform team for train trips. This gave them the chance to put their learning into practice, and to help launch Transport Takeover.

Travelling from Bristol Temple Meads to Severn Beach on a GWR service gave students plenty of opportunity to think about movement and travel. On arrival in Severn Beach, they helped launch the game in style: playing it – and it’s many different versions (see here) – and providing feedback. They were then tasked with designing a 43^rd card and, as it was December, the only appropriate thing to design was a mode of transport for Santa!

From gift-giving camels to Santa’s sleigh-house, students produced an impressive range of card-designs that showed consideration of all topics covered on the cards as well as imagination and creativity.

Some of the stand-out comments from students following the launch included:

“I loved being creative and expressing my ideas.”

“It made me think about transport and what it does to the world.”

“The thing that’s good about it is that I got to learn about the sustainability of the different types of transport and that there were lots of different categories like cost and safety and passengers too. I like learning about these things.”

Imogen Sackett – Senior Learning Development Officer from Platform – said, “It was brilliant to work collaboratively on this game with my colleagues and I am so thrilled with the final version. At Platform, we are keen to be sticky not scary, and to empower young people with the knowledge to make healthy, sensible and sustainable choices, and these cards allow us to do just that.”

The team extend their thanks to Caroline Dalcq for the Icon Design, Matt Magovern from Typecraft for prompt and perfect printing, to the staff and students at Oasis Temple Quarter for being involved in the launch, and to GWR for free travel for rail education.

Finally, a huge thanks to The Community Rail Network, who funded the project through the Community Rail Development Fund distributed on behalf of the DFT.