Board Games at Break

                                                  Playful Engagement by Madeleine Leisk CC BY-NC

The UCF is always a fun place to work, but this past month, we have had the opportunity to add even more fun, excitement and teamwork to the UCF with the help of the Playful Engagement box. The box, a treasure trove of games, colouring books and creative materials, was created as part of the ISG commitment to Playful Engagement and the Innovation Fund project. We had the honour of being the first site location to receive the travelling box, while another box is located at Argyle House. These activities have been carefully curated so that they can be used during a short break, as part of a team building exercise, or as a way to relax individually. Some of our favourite objects in the box were: Hanabi, Perudo, One Night Werewolf, and an animal colouring book.

We dove right in with a game of One Night Werewolf, a quick game whereby players are randomly assigned characters and must discover which player is the werewolf. We were also able to practice our poker-faces with the dice game, Perudo, and made some goofy cartoons for our lunch room.

This month, we have also welcomed two new Library Assistants to the UCF and a game of Hanabi was a great introduction to the team. The game required teamwork to build the best fireworks display from a set of cards. It was simple enough to complete a game during our tea break but it was also challenging as it required players to rely on each other to provide clues to reach the communal goal of building a vibrant fireworks display.

These activities have been a great way to continue our development as a team and to add some more fun to our work. The individual activities, like the Animal Kingdom colouring book and the art supplies, have also been a good way to relax individually during our lunch breaks.

We will be sad to see the Playful Engagement box leave, but we hope that whatever team receives the box next enjoys it as much as we did (and does not mind the completed colouring pages). I would also recommend that you visit the Playful Engagement website, https://thinking.is.ed.ac.uk/playful-engagement/ and play some of the metadata games at https://librarylabs.ed.ac.uk/games/.

Madeleine Leisk, UCF Library Assistant

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