But phones, iPads, toys with batteries and huge immersive screens were a central part of the Festival of Digital Play, which attracted hundreds of families to the University of Wollongong's Early Start Discovery Space on Thursday.

Director of Early Start Research Professor Lisa Kervin said many of the families who regularly attend the children's museum and play space raised the issue of digital technology as something they struggle with in their parenting.

"It's an area that is so contentious for families," she said.

"We know that digital technologies are in homes - our families tell us that - so we just really want to be able to give them some strategies and some ways of thinking about using digital technologies in ways that are productive and safe for children.

"We're not about shaming about screen time and all of those sorts of discourses, we just want to have that conversation.

"We really try hard to push against solitary, isolated play with digital technologies because we don't think that's a good use of digital resources at all.

"But if you're engaging with something for a real purpose, then that changes the nature of it."

To do this, researchers set up various play experiences, showing kids and parents how technology can be used to make activities more exciting and engaging.

For instance, at one pop-up in the garden area children were encouraged to make a giant bubble painting, with Early Start staff filming their creations in slow motion to show them how a bubble forms and how it looks when it pops.

"This is simple technology that most families have on their smart phones, so it's about empowering parents without a great expense to do amazing things," Prof Kervin said.

The festival was also designed to give kids and parents new ways of using commercial digital toys they might already have at home in a way that allows for open ended play and enriching experiences.

"Families are often talking to us about 'what are good things to purchase for my child?', particularly around Christmas, and we thought it would be really great if we could give families some guidance in terms of how to incorporate these resources into some really great evidence-based quality practises," she said.

Researchers set up a robot rally and robot obstacle course using commercially produced toys, which was designed to create open ended play experiences for the common battery powered toys.

"There's a race track that the team have created for the robots, and they have to navigate around that particular space,"

"Sometimes we as parents, we invest in these things because we think they're going to be really great, but then the child loses interest really quickly, and then it just ends up in the cupboard and it's never touched again.

"We're showing families some ways that these resources could be used, that do the things that we want them to do - so there's open ended exploration there, with the adults really scaffolding the interaction as well.

"If adults are having fun, then children are having fun too."

Watching her nieces Goldie and Lakey play with the robot racetrack, Evie Parrish-Gibbons said it was good for all caregivers to know how to use technology with kids.

"We live in a digital world now, kids are surrounded by ipads and phones and at school we use all sorts of different technologies," she said.

"At home, a lot of the time, if we don't have enough experience with technology, rather than knowing what to give the kids, they'll end up in front of YouTube or movies or a game - which has its place - but knowing that this sort of stuff exists can mean that you can use technology in a different way with your kids.

"Education is the only way to really make a difference in it."