Support the Troops

Challenge: Members take turns to remove a piece and place it at the top of the stack. It’s an ever-evolving game moving pieces from bottom to top to build the highest self-supporting tower. Everyone moves one piece before anyone move another. To increase the challenge, we might impose a variety of challenges, such blindfolding one member. How tall will tower grow before it tumbles to the ground?

Takeaway: Coaching and supporting each other is key.

Challenge: Using a pencil, each member takes turns stacking large hardware nuts to build the tallest self-supporting tower. Steady hands are a must, especially if participants are blindfolded. To amp up the challenge, build two towers connecting each layer with a pencil through the nuts.

Takeaway: Communication and patience.

Challenge: Relive the childhood days of playing with army men as each team member snaps rubber bands to knock down as many army men as possible. Sounds easy until participants realize rubber bands are difficult to aim from four feet away.

Takeaway: Patience and agility.

Challenge: Build a precarious tower made with a cup and a marble stacked on top of a bandana. Team members, holding the edges of the bandana, carefully walk around their table without dropping the ball. Fastest time wins. Drop the ball, start again. Successfully finish and have more time? Do it again. It’s all about process improvement.

Takeaway: Communication and coordinated effort.

Challenge: Teams compete in a relay to move balls from start to finish as quickly as possible using unusual “gutter” tools. Each member has a tool to transfer the ball to the next person. Everyone gets a chance to transfer the ball before any participant can do it a second time. Team members who drop the ball must start again.

Takeaway: Patience and communication.

Challenge: Using their hands, members launch helicopters and try to land them into a bucket that is several feet away. If a helicopter misses the bucket, it is scooped up by a retriever, who then switches places with the launcher in a fast game of constant role reversal.

Takeaway: Communication, adapting to different roles.

Challenge: Following specific rules, members try to move a stack of five blocks from one location to another as quickly as possible. There is only one way to solve this puzzle. The first challenge is to figure out the sequence of moves. The second challenge is to remember whose turn it is to move. Each member is assigned a block to move. If a block is moved out of sequence, the challenge must start again from the beginning.

Takeaway: Communication and awareness of others.

Challenge: A selected team member tries to keep three balloons aloft for as long as possible. Others help by keeping rogue balloons in play, but each may touch a balloon only once before becoming a spectator.

Takeaway: Agility and support.

Challenge: Teammates use cups to catch ping-pong balls bounced by other team members. When a ball is caught, it remains in the cup, and another cup is stacked on top. It’s hard enough to catch the ball, but that’s only beginning. As the cup stack grows, it becomes an awkward swinging tower that is difficult to manage. The tallest tower wins. Everyone takes turns scoring points in this team challenge.

Takeaway: Coordination and communication.

Challenge: With one hand, all participants hold a cup on top of their heads. With the other hand, they bounce ping-pong balls high enough that their teammates can catch it their cups. Scores are determined by multiplying the number of balls caught by the number of teammates who caught a ball.

Takeaway: Communication and collaboration.

Challenge: Working in pairs, teammates use index fingers to help lift small blocks to build a self-supporting block tower. The team who builds the tallest tower in the shortest time wins the challenge.

Takeaway: Collaboration and patience.

Challenge: Two teams with equal number of members face off one on one. At the given signal, each opposing member will try to snatch a bandana placed equidistant between them. Competing pairs change every turn. The challenged is increased by switching hands:  If you are a “righty” then go “lefty” and vice versa. Other variations are the “spin and grab” and the blindfolded challenge.

Takeaway: Agility and awareness.