15 Team Building Activities

1. The Blanket Name Game

The Day we arrived we were sent to our very first “squad time,” which simply meant that all 3 squads had their own assigned space to meet during the week. Of course since this is the first time we are all getting to meet each other in person (some of us had met over zoom calls) most of us had no idea who was who. Our squad mentor Cami suggested a name game. Immediate dread filled me. I am not great with names. I need something they’ve said or done to stick with me in order to remember them. Off the top of my head I could name 3 of them confidently out of 29 plus Cami, Keith, and Karen. 

Basically, the game starts with 2 people that are not playing holding up a blanket. The squad is divided into 2 teams half on either side of the blanket. Each team sends one person to stand in front of the blanket meaning there is a person on either side. The blanket is dropped and the people on either side have to shout out the name of the other person. The first to say it wins and the loser switches teams. Did I mention I don’t think well under pressure. My mind goes blank. I hung back as the game began and our team quickly realized we weren’t likely to win. At that point I figured I may as well get it over with and moved up to the blanket. The blanket dropped and a small girl with dark braids stood in front of me. I waited for her to say my name. She was clearly racking her brain trying to come up with it. I certainly had no clue who she was. Then people started to chuckle. Neither of us knew the other person’s name. With a shrug and a smile we shook hands and introduced ourselves as we went back to our respective teams. The first stalemate of the game. The girl’s name, Gwen. My future teammate. The game continued and I went up again. I lost this time. I still can’t tell you who I lost to because it happened so fast. It was only a few more minutes before the game wrapped up with my team losing everyone except two guys which meant whoever went against them had a 50-50 chance and if the said both names faster than their own name was said it was game over and that’s exactly what happened.

    2. Hula Hoop

At the end of our first full day at training camp (from here on shortened to TC) we were asked to make our own groups of 6 for an activity. With no one really knowing anyone else very well we just looked to the people right around us. Chanel, Jack, Sam, Nicole, Abby, and I were one group. The task we were given was to rest a hula hoop on top of our fingers and, without grabbing the hoop, lower it to the floor. Fingers had to stay in contact with the hoop at all times. Failure to do so would mean starting over. Without thinking about it we circled up and simply attempted the task. We got no further than 3in before Jack announced his fingers had come off and so we reset. It was probably 5min later before we realized that the two shortest people were nest to each other and the two tallest people were next to each other, leading to a very lopsided hula hoop. We rearranged and tried again. We did manage to get it to the floor one time. We were told we had cheated though. We didn’t grab the hoop which was against the rules instead we all pushed against the hoop and locked it in place that way before setting it on the floor. I still think that bit of ingenuity should count as a win. Since it didn’t count, we reset and started again. We made it about halfway down. The last person was getting down on their knees when someone’s hands came off again and we were out of time.

    3-5. The Rope, the Knot, and the Repopulation

Upon finishing our discussion in our hula hoop group we were reassigned to groups created by Cami and the rest of the staff. We were given 45min to complete 3 tasks. We could do the tasks in whatever order we chose. We started with the blindfolded rope square. Everyone on the team was blindfolded and we had to take a 16ft rope and make it into a square. We numbered off and our job was based on our number. 1-4 would each be a corner, 5 would be the final connector, and 6 would pace off the square to make sure it was actually square.

Person 1 took the end of the rope in their hand and held tight. I was person two and I had to walk up to person 1 find the rope in their hands and let it slide through my fingers as I took four steps back and turned 90 degrees. Person 3 comes up to me and I tighten my hand on my section of rope. I tell them which way to turn once they take their 4 steps back so we make a square and not a zigzag. They do the same with person 4. Person 5 finds person 4 and takes the leftover rope back to person 1. Person 6 then walks around and paces off how far apart we are. A bit of moving around and we had it. It took us 20min.

We moved on to what we thought would be a fairly simple task. We were given a list of 30 names along with their age, gender, and job and asked to decide which ones were going to another planet to repopulate it. After going through all of the options we started to rule some out. We were going much too slow. It took us 20min to decide that all we needed was the doctor and a few guys and a few girls. The rest was unimportant. We were tasked with repopulation not terraforming. We didn’t need the farmer or the astrologer etc. 

Only 5 minutes to go. We circled up and started grabbing hands. With only 6 of us and the fact I had very recently looked up how many people should there be for the human knot, I knew it would only take us a minute to untangle ourselves. We did have a moment of confusion when the last two hands went to grab each other only to realize they were both left hands. I still don’t know how it happened. It took us all of 1 minute to undo the knot that took us 4 minutes to create. Just in time. 

    6. Magic Carpet

Another day, another team. This time my team consisted of Chanel, Jacob, Jose, Lindsey, and Daliah. A towel was stretched out on the floor in front of us and we were all asked to stand on it. Then we were told we needed to flip it over without stepping off of the towel and onto the floor. We discussed it for a little while then we saw another team with guys picking up the girls so they weren’t touching the floor but they were also not on the towel. Less feet to deal with. We quickly adopted the method. Lindsey and Daliah being the two lightest, went up. Both of them and Chanel offered up their weight immediately. I think the taboo thing of asking a woman her weight is soon to be a thing of the past. 

With only 4 pairs of feet to deal with now, Chanel forms a plan. The guys will stand in the middle with Chanel and I on either end. Chanel carefully flips her section of towel over then crouches down and starts tugging it so the smallest part is under the feet of Jose. By directing him on which foot to pick up she gets it done. After watching how she did it, I carefully flipped over my section of towel the same way as hers so we didn’t end up with a full twist in the middle. Once that’s done I crouch down and direct Jacob on which foot to pick up as I tug the towel straight under his feet. We did it.

We were then asked to do it again. This time Chanel and I were blindfolded. Down comes Lindsey from Jacob’s shoulders to be taught how to flip the towel. Then the blindfolds go on and Chanel takes Lindsey’s place up top. I would listen to Lindsey’s directions on how to flip the towel since I couldn’t see anything. Lindsey is significantly taller than Chanel and needs more room to maneuver the towel, so the guys move over closer and closer to me. It’s all I can do to keep my feet still knowing the floor is just behind my heels and someone is standing less than an inch away from my face. Their shirt tickled my nose as I inhaled. Someone’s knees were in my shoulders as everyone tried to give Lindsey the room she asked for. At some point both guys are leaning into me and I’m pushing back just trying to hold us up. I don’t remember what happened but we were asked to restart.

This time we had Lindsey put us where she wanted us on the towel and just let her do her own thing. I was still blindfolded. The other two girls still up on shoulders. All I can tell you about that attempt is that at one point whoever was behind me was holding my arms as I worked my feet back further and further. I felt like Rose from the titanic when she was angled out over the rail. Or maybe it was like someone was dragging me back from a fight. That attempt didn’t work either and then we were out of time.

    7. River Crossing

After a break we came back and were put into teams again. Gwen, Colton, Lindsey, Jacob, and Jose. This game is a bit more complicated to explain so bear with me. A staff member is put with each group to observe how they interact in each task and this time we got Keith. Okay, the game. With a group of 6 we were handed 5 1’x1′ boards to use as rafts, and blindfolds were used to mark the borders of the river. Ours was about 37′ because Keith decided a smaller river was too easy to cross and in fact we didn’t need all the boards to cross one smaller than that. Jacob took charge since he had done this before. We had to be in contact with the “rafts” at all times. If we weren’t then the raft floated off down river and was lost. Our goal was to cross the river and return without getting in the water. We sent Gwen first to place the rafts since she was the smallest. We didn’t want them to end up to far apart for her. Lindsey volunteered to go last to pick up the rafts so that we would have them for the return trip. Gwen would reach out and place a raft and step on it without removing her hand, then stand up. Lindsey had to lean down put a hand on the last raft then remove her. foot and stand back up with the raft. Each of us in the middle simply had a foot on 2 rafts at all times. Without thinking Lindsey stepped off the last raft before trying to pick it up. -1 raft. No big deal we would simply help Gwen move across on the way back with the rafts further apart. We lost a second raft due to a fumble but we made it across. The question was how do we get everyone back across with only 3 rafts? Colton quickly suggested the guys each carry a girl on their shoulders. I said no way and the other two guys also suggested finding an alternate way across. Colton looked disappointed so I explained that while the idea was good it would be very difficult to execute since 2 out of 3 guys would need to squat down multiple times to place and retrieve rafts with someone balanced on their shoulders. The idea we landed on was simple. We would take multiple trips. Three people across the first time then one would go back and take 2 more. A final return trip would get the last one across. Jacob volunteered for the task of ferryman and we got everyone across without losing any rafts. 

Keith followed it up by giving us a handicap. None of the guys could use their arms. Very quickly we decided Gwen would go first I would go in the middle of the guys and Lindsey would go last. As she picked up each board she handed it to me and I could then hand it to Gwen. All the guys had to do was not lose their balance. Easy Peasy. We made it across without losing any rafts.

Keith also decided it was too easy and decided that we could only make animal noises instead of talking. I really can’t explain how suddenly so many of us lost our balance that round and fell off our rafts. I can tell you that there were only 3 people left and only 2 rafts. Rather than wrack our brains to solve that conundrum we decided to attempt something much harder. All of us were blindfolded. Keith was our only way of knowing when we made it across the river. We got in order and held hands. The first person set out the first raft and moved onto it. Then they set the second raft and were now straddling both rafts. I reached with my foot and found a leg and followed that down to the raft. The others followed suit. The 5th raft was placed which had meant we should just have a step to shore. We posed the question to Keith who chuckled at us and told us we weren’t close enough yet. The raft is passed up from the end and placed in the front and we all shifted and asked again. Same answer. We do it another time and this time Keith says “Eh, yeah you’re close enough.” He also told us to leave the rafts behind so we can see our path after we take our blindfolds off. As I stepped off I noticed the concrete floor felt a bit different underfoot. We were definitely standing on something. Once everyone made it off we took off our blindfolds and laughed. Somewhere in the middle we had managed to turn 90 degrees and were headed upriver instead of to the shore. We were standing on the edge of a hay bale only a couple of feet away from a wall. Thanks, Keith for not actually letting us hit it even though it would have been pretty funny!

    8-15. Candles, Pencils, Fruit By The Foot, Water, Sock, Crawl, Cream, Gum

How quickly the week went by. Already we had our assigned teams. Now we were competing against the other teams and a team of staff. Being the small team, someone would have to go twice. The first task, blowing out a row of candles. Jose proved very quickly he would ace this task. He didn’t get the aim quite right and so didn’t win but he still did pretty good.

Next up Jacob had to balance pencils on the back of his hand, toss them up, and catch them. Starting with 2 and adding 2 every time they were all caught, he also did pretty well.

My turn. I had to race the other teams in eating a fruit by the foot fastest, without hands. I came in 3rd.

Then we all went outside and cups and bottles of water were distributed. We had to compete within our teams to see who could go from laying down with a half full cup of water to fully standing without touching or spilling the water. We each tried and I made it to my knees but had no way to stand up without a jarring move that would spill the water. Jacob tried a second time and managed to stand all the way up so we sent him in to the final competition against the other teams. The water spilled after he stood up but before he was completely stable. I don’t know if they counted it as third place or a disqualification.

Back inside to watch Lindsey try to slide across the floor the furthest distance in her socks. She had pulled off her socks as soon as she knew she was doing that in hopes they would dry out a bit. Georgia is hot and humid and rainy in July. She wasn’t last. I really can’t figure out how some of them got so far. They must not sweat. 

Jose was up again. They did this one in multiple heats so they wouldn’t kill each other. Jose was up against Joey in the first round. They had to lay on their backs and push with their feet across the floor to a paper towel with a graham cracker on it, flip over and pick up the cracker with their mouth then stand up and eat it. First one to get it down wins. Rather than simply cheering Jose on I asked him what his favorite foods were and I yelled out those instead. I sounded really weird shouting banana but hey he won. I doubt he actually heard me over everyone else. He wacked his nose on the ground flipping over and somehow elbowed Joey in the mouth and gave him a bloody lip. I tell you anyone willing to go against him in the final round had to be brave. Needless to say he won that one. Karen did manage to get second from her slower start. She managed to get the graham cracker down in record time beating out the person who had been in second position. 

Gwen finally got her turn for the whip cream flip challenge. A dollop of whipped cream on the back of the hand, followed by using the other hand to slap down the arm with whipped cream as the whipped cream arm comes up in order to pop the whip cream off of the hand and into the air to be caught like a very large piece of popcorn in the mouth. She lost to Keith in the final round because he had more of the whipped cream in his mouth. 

The finally task was a relay. We had to search through one of 6 bowls of marshmallows to find a piece of gum, chew it, and blow a bubble. With only 5 people I volunteered to go twice. I do so enjoy blowing bubbles. As I volunteered to go twice Jacob confesses that he doesn’t know how to blow a bubble. In what could be seen as a counter intuitive move we decided he would go first. The rest of us could make up the time if we could ever get him to blow a bubble. The game starts and he quickly finds the gum. It was a softer type of gum so it didn’t take much to get it ready. Very calmly we walked him through it and he made a tiny bubble. According to the staff member watching, it counted. I immediately followed it up with a decent bubble of my own. Then the rest of the team went and I went down to the last bowl. I struggled to find the gum through the marshmallows then ended up chewing marshmallows and gum together which kept the gum from binding. Meanwhile across the table from our team Jack is the last person for the next team and Joey is making faces and stretching his mouth open with his hands trying to explain how to blow a bubble to Jack. Jack was laughing so hard he was crying. I started laughing at Joey’s antics too and realized I was being distracted from chewing my gum and turned away from them. Jose comes up right in front of me and starts talking. I don’t know what he said but it kept me from turning around and focusing on the people across from me. I made a bubble and had to get the attention of the staff member who was watching the spectacle. Our team won first place. Then we found out we won first place overall. Staff team came in second. We celebrated with surprise fireworks outside.