I had my students measure it once as part of a math project. I can’t remember, but I think it’s around 15 feet. It looks pretty tall, but once you get to the top it seems soooooooo much higher.
When it went in, I could not believe it. (It was paid for and ordered by our school’s PTA.) We didn’t have swing sets for years and years because of the “danger” factor. We now have swing sets and a regular play structure (the kind that you climb up and has multiple slides, a zip line, etc.).
And yet, one would think the most dangerous part of the playground would be that space net. In two years…not one injury. None. And kids love it.
For a while, the trend in city parks and schools was “safe” playgrounds. Which basically meant very little equipment and two feet of bark chips. Now, things like really large, high play structures are making a comeback.
My personal opinion is that kids need to play on things like this to develop balance, strength, and coordination. If kids never play on something with a danger factor, they will never learn to be safe. You can coat an entire playground in 18 inches of foam and require children to wear helmets and full-body padded armor, but, in my opinion, education and experience will keep kids a lot safer.
There’s one at Tom Brown Park in Tallahassee. My daughter has played on it many, many times without incident (if you don’t count getting scared and needing a “rescue”, but she was only five at the time and is now much more brave). I loved the idea of it…it reminded me of the jungle gyms I used to play on when I was young, only made of ropes instead of that metal that would make ya sizzle in the summertime.
Edit: Found a picture of the one at Tom Brown, second from the top.
My elementary school had one of these, but bigger. (Maybe half-again as large.) Must have been one too many broken arms from kids falling from the top; after a few years they dug a trench and buried it one tier deep in the ground.
We called these ‘Spider-webs’ and there were heaps of these in playgrounds here when I was growing up (born 1984). Still are. I can think of 3 within 15 minutes walk of my house and I’m sure there are more outside that.
They are GREAT fun. I loved them and would climb to the top to avoid my parents when it was ‘time to go home’ just to stay a few minutes longer. There was one enormous one at a very popular park just a few minutes walk from our house. I spent a lot of time on them and I honestly can’t remember a single injury or even a fall. I remember kids hurting themselves jumping off swings, sliding down slides in awkward positions, via unfortunate see-saw accidents but nothing to do with the spider-webs.
In retrospect, I’m surprised. They do seem to have a lot of injury potential. The most dangerous part would have been when a crowd of larger kids (10+) climb up in groups and shake the whole thing around. If someone did that maliciously, smaller children could be hurt, but I remember someone always shouted ‘hold on!’ before doing that.
Extra fun is climbing up and then wrapping yourself around the central pole and sliding down. Happy memories!
There used to be one at a public park near here. It was taken out one summer when the whole park flooded and the equipment was changed. It looks like fun (and a good workout!)
This is the biggest one I’ve seen: Beecraigs Park. You can get a better sense of scale from the small picture here…
And if anyone’s interested, this is what a smaller one looks like from below!
Woah! I haven’t been to Tom Brown in over a year (I play Disc Golf there)…they’ve REALLY changed it! Looking forward to taking my dog to the “bark park” now! 'cos there’s no way you could keep me off that net!
My emotional reaction is, “OMIGAWD! They’re so high!”
My rational reaction is that it looks no less safe than the various playground equipment that I played on a child, and safer than most. I remember one giant slide we’d had that was I think 10-14 feet high, and the potential for falling off of it was much, much greater than this, because as noted above the kids have so many chances to catch themselves if the lose their grip on the structure.
There was one in a park near my high school (it may still be there - I haven’t been in years) and at least one more in another park I drive by.
We used to call it the Mesh Monster.
There’s something like this in the mall near here. Except the one here is HUGE. At it’s base it’s probably 30 feet across. It sits on the ground floor, and when you’re on the second level of the mall, you’re looking straight out at the highest levels. It has platforms and a couple tunnel looking things in it.
It looks like a blast but there’s some stupid restriction that says I’m too big to go play on it.
My daughter would love one of those. There is a playground we used to go to when she was young that had a cargo net you could climb, but I’ve never seen anything like that.
Happy memories!