Team Building Exercise

We had to pass a tennis ball between a group of people as fast as possible. The ball had to touch each person's hands the first round, and the second round it had to physically be in possession on the person before it could be passed around.


Thusly the first round we went with this design:
The arm "a" indicates a singular person who retainer possession of the ball the entire time. She would quickly roll the ball over everyone's hand (represented with "O"), which achieved a fast time. However, the rules were quickly changed to say the ball must  be in each persons possession in order to win. Thus revisions were necessary.


The second round we changed the design drastically:

Here we line the hands to make a large ramp, where we drop the ball from the top. The ball thusly touches each person's hand, and they are in possession of the ball for a millisecond. However, questions were raised as to whether we all touched the ball, as the ball would frequently "hop" a hand. Thus another redesign was in order.





Lastly, we modified the design:

Now everyone had two hands in the came, and the ball would fall and brush by each person's hand. This not only allowed us to constantly have the ball touch each person's hand, but also for the ball to achieve greater speeds. This design worked very well, if it weren't for the other team winning. Their design was very similar, but the ball only touched each of their fingers, not was stopped for a second by their hands before it was released.




Next time we would approach an activity of similar nature, I would retain the way the ideas were made, for we had an "open forum" style, which was very productive and resulted in good designs. I would also ensure the rule set was firm, to avoid these mid-game changes.

Ship at sea

We were asked to evaluate a list of objects and rank them by their usefulness when deserted on a raft in the middle of the ocean.

Personal Order:

1. A floating seat cousin: In case the boat sinks (I figured if you drown nothing else will be of any assistance to you. Also sitting in a raft all day would eventually hurt your behind.)
2. A shaving mirror: to attract people, to save me (If I can't get help then no amount of food nor water will ultimately save me)
3. plastic sheeting
4. Gas
5. Water
6. Fishing kit
7. Army rations
8. Rum
9. Mosquito netting
10. Rope: to use with the net
11. Sextant, Maps, and radio: All useless without other technology, such as a paddle.

The group that I was with had identical choices, excluding the inclusion of the seat cousin so high up on the list. I figured that drowning is a real hazard, they figured it was a non-issue. Also they tended to move the opaque plastic sheeting as a sun shield, which I found humorous.

Our choices were very similar to those of the experts, although they did rank the seat cushion much lower, which was surprising. Also ranked the oil lower, however heat is one of the most important things to sustain. Personally I'd go with experimental data, that is actually getting trapped on a raft, for experts are frequently incorrect, just less so then a normal person.