Spring Riders and Seesaws

Spring riders and seesaws encourage group play and help children make friends. The traditional two-seat seesaw and modern spring riders shaped like animals and vehicles remain as popular as ever with young children.

Along with slides and sandpits, they are among the most frequently chosen items in our playground section. Robust, certified fixings keep them safe even with intensive daily use.

Spring riders are designed mainly for children aged approximately two to six. For this reason we install them on impact-absorbing surfacing such as sand, gravel or rubber matting, which reduces the risk of injury from a fall.

A traditional seesaw works as a simple lever with a central pivot. It teaches children to cooperate and to sense the balance between two people sitting at opposite ends. It is one of the few kinds of playground play that needs a second person by definition, so it naturally brings together children who have not met before.

Modern spring riders come in a wide variety of forms, from traditional animals and vehicles to abstract geometric shapes that match the look of a particular playground. The design should suit the setting. A horse-shaped rider works well at a village or school playground, while a more understated design fits better in a modern urban residential area.

The spring mechanism should be checked regularly for corrosion and to make sure it is firmly fixed to the foundation, because it carries the entire dynamic load created by the rocking user. A neglected, corroded spring is one of the more common faults found during periodic playground inspections.

The impact-absorbing surfacing under a spring rider should cover the rider's full range of movement, including its maximum sideways tilt. In practice, the safety zone is therefore noticeably wider than the base of the rider. This is sometimes overlooked on smaller playgrounds where equipment is positioned without proper planning.

When planning a set of equipment, it helps to choose a variety of designs. Several spring riders in different animal or vehicle shapes placed side by side encourage children of a similar age to play together. They also make the playground more varied than several copies of the same model.