In this activity, the team has to build a road for a toy car using only the provided materials.
Resources:
- 1 paper towel tube
- 1 paper cup
- 1 small toy car
- 1 sheet of paper
- 5 index cards
- 5 rubber bands
- 15 paper clips
- 20cm of masking tape
- 10 plastic straws
Space Required: Large. Indoors or outdoors.
Group Size: 4 to 8 ideally. With bigger groups, you can split them into smaller teams and prepare one set of resources for each team.
Total Time: 40 minutes
- 5 minutes to brief and setup
- 15 minutes for construction and testing
- 10 minutes for the final race
- 10 minutes to review and debrief
Running the Activity
- Explain the activity: The team has to build a road for a toy car using only the provided materials. The toy car must be able to move without any contact or pushing; you can only touch the car when putting it at the start point of the road. Construction time is 5 minutes, followed by 2 minutes of test time. Then you are given another 3 minutes to make any necessary changes before the real road race begins. The team has 3 tries and the longest distance traveled out of the 3 attempts will be their final score.
- Scoring system (if there is more than one team participating): the team whose toy car travels the longest distance from their start point wins the activity.
- Once they are ready, the trainer can start the clock for the team to begin the activity,
Rules
- Only the provided materials can be used during the challenge.
- Participants are not allowed to directly touch or move the toy car after it has been placed on the start point.
- Construction time is 5 minutes, followed by 2 minutes of test time. Then you are given another 3 minutes to make any necessary changes before the real road race begins.
- The longest distance out of 3 race attempts will be the team’s final score.
Suggested Learning Outcomes
- Problem solving
- Planning
- Creative thinking
- Time management
Review
Suggested questions to ask:
- What did you do well?
- How did you come up with the design of the road? Did everyone agree with the design?
- If you had to do something differently next time, what would you do?
- How did you manage your time effectively?
- Did you identify a leader?
- What leadership skills were demonstrated during the challenge?
More Team Building Ideas
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Hello! Can you please send the solution to this activity.
There isn’t a “single” solution for this activity. Each group uses the materials to construct a a road/ramp for the car to start on and the farther the car travels the better the chances you have of winning. The idea is the higher you can build the starting road the more potential energy you can build up.
You use creativity and materials in hand to build a platform/road for you car to start out on.
Hope that helps!
Daniel
Do you have a picture of this activity in action? Trying to visualize an example “road.”
Thanks!
Becky
Becky – Thanks for the question.
I don’t have any but maybe another Venture Team Building reader has recently done it and could share any photos they have.