Play-Test is open source, community driven, expandable, and easy to use.
At present, it is a web platform for logging inspections of play equipment like bouncy castles, slides, or obstacle courses.
These units are commonly tested against the BS EN 14960 specification, and that's the specification that Play-Test tries to fit to.
There are many ways that bouncy castle inspectors might currently log their work:
- The proprietary PIPA test database at pipa.org.uk
- On their individual Bouncy Castle Network websites
- Using their own custom web solutions like Google Spreadsheets
- Offline with pen and paper
These all have their merits, but none are open, transparent systems that anyone can use or help improve regardless of which trade bodies they belong to or web platforms they use.
Who is building it?
The person maintaining the code and writing these words is Stefan from Chobble - a software development company in Manchester, UK. I was the lead developer at The Bouncy Castle Network for ten-ish years, and then a senior developer at Bandcamp for six-ish. I'm now freelancing - writing open source code for businesses across the UK and putting my know-how to good use as an ethical tech consultant.
I hold myself to a high standard of transparency and independence which I think makes me well-placed to steward the play-test project.
The original code for the system is heavily based on a Windows app by Spencer of Elliotts Bouncy Castle Hire, a fellow nerd in the bouncy castle world. Without Spencer's RPII knowledge the system would never have happened.
Who is sponsoring it?
So far, The Register of Play Inspectors International is the only sponsor. Their generous funding has helped the system become more useful to all users, whether RPII inspectors or not.
If you'd like to sponsor the system's development - awesome! You can pay an hourly rate to me at Chobble and fund features directly. Or, you can pay Chobble for a user account on my hosted instance, and vote for features using a built-in interface.
Who is it for?
If you're from the governing body of a training association you might like to host an instance for your own members to use, like the RPII do. You can manage this yourself, or contact Chobble for billable hourly help.
If you're an inspector or you manage an inspection company you might like to get accounts for you or your team members on an existing hosted instance.
If you're a member of the public you might want to search for an existing unit or inspection, at play-test.co.uk/search.
If you're a fellow open source nerd you might want to clone the repository at github:chobbledotcom/play-test and have a poke around! The code is all AGPLv3-licensed, so you'll need to share any modifications under that license too.
What is open source?
Everything you do on a computer, phone, tablet, etc, is through software. You can sorta divide software into two camps - proprietary software that is locked down to a single provider, or open source software that is open for anyone to use.
Open source software comes with some benefits, like:
- It's free for anyone to use, providing they can figure it out
- Anyone can contribute to it and help improve it or fix bugs
- Anyone who disagrees with its direction can "fork" it to create their own version
But it also has a downside - that the path towards profitability can be harder as it requires more goodwill from users who could use it for free if they were determined enough.
My hope is that enough members of the play equipment hire industry will understand the value in an open source play-test platform to make its development sustainable. If you agree, it would be great if you could support the project.
