Team building sctivities

[Jon Stratis]

I like team building activities that address our reason for being there: Engineering and problem solving.

1. Engineering: Break the group up into teams of 4-6 people. Give each of them a 50-pack of balloons and a roll of tape, and see who can build the tallest free-standing tower.

2. Engineering: Break the group up into teams of 4-6 people. Have them build a bridge out of tape and newspaper that allows some common object (like a cRio) to fit underneath, and see whose bridge can support the most weight (use commonly available textbooks as weights!)

3. Problem solving: Select 2-3 "leaders" from the group and set them aside. This leaves a group size N. Draw N+1 circles on the floor, in a straight line. Place one person in each circle, with the circle in the middle open. Each half of the group faces the middle, and will always face in that directly (so if you're facing left, you always face left). The goal is to get them to swap positions, so those that start on the left finish on the right. The rules: If there's an open circle in front of you, you can move forward into it. If you are face-to-face with someone and there's an open circle on the other side, you can leap-frog them to get to the circle. Those are the only two valid moves. The "leaders" can walk around and assist/direct the process. The group cannot leave their circles unless its to perform a valid move.

4: Problem solving: Create a human knot - stand in a circle, everyone reaches in blindly and grabs two other people's hands. Now, untangle the knot!