Note: Sorry that there are practically no photos; more details at the bottom of the post.
Date: 18th June 2014
Time: 10am
Location: Pantai Merdeka, Kedah
On this beautiful sunny day, the Accessory team set off from Penang to Pantai Merdeka where the teambuilding activities would be held.
Date? Check.
As the clock ticked closer to 10am, more and more cars arrived at Pantai Merdeka. But at 10am, as everyone gathered with their respective teammates, we realised that there were some people still missing.
Time? Not so successful.
The five teams had been set up a week before the actual teambuilding date. As a pre-activity, each team had to come up with a game to play, ideally a game that they had a good chance of winning. They would then prepare the materials/equipment to set up the game on the actual day.
The first game scheduled for that day was the Red Team's. Unfortunately, the person holding the game materials had not yet arrived, so instead of sitting around and waiting, the Green Team was asked to start their game first.
Green Team's game: Obstacle course relay
Participants must cross different types of obstacles till the final line.The team flag is used as a baton.
Obstacle 1: One member of the team has to walk on evenly spaced reflexology mats (each "mat" is a square foot of plastic with pebble-shaped contours on it) to reach their teammate at the 2nd obstacle.
Obstacle 2: One member of the team has to place a biscuit on their forehead, and then successfully bite the biscuit without using their hands. They have to start over again if the biscuit falls to the ground.
Obstacle 3: Four-legged race - Three members of the team have to tie their legs together and then walk (or run) to the end of the path.
Obstacle 4: One member of the team has to drink a bottle of Vitagen and throw the empty bottle into a rubbish bin placed a few metres away. If they fail, they have to drink another bottle and try again. Each team has up to five bottles to try with; if they still fail, the team will incur a 3-minute penalty.
Obstacle 5: One member of the team has to place their forehead on a cone (a construction cone) and turn around it 10 times. After that, they have to pass the baton to their teammate a distance away.
Obstacle 6: Two members of the team have to do the wheelbarrow race, ie. one person holds the legs of the other, and both advance together with the one whose legs are being held using his hands to walk.
Obstacle 7: One member of the team has to kick a football 10 times in the air. If the ball falls to the ground, they have to restart the count from zero. Once the ten times are done, the time is stopped.
The team with the fastest time wins!
As expected, the Green Team won their game as a result of their hard training sessions before coming to the teambuilding.
After that, it was the turn of the Blue Team to set up their game.
Blue Team's game: Cross the river
Each team has two pieces of cardboard with which they have to get from the starting line to the finishing line. If the feet of any member of the team touches the ground, the whole team has to start all over from the beginning.
Each team should have nine members, so members of the committee helped to fill in for the missing (late) members.
The team with the fastest time wins!
In this game, there were two different strategies used by the five teams. Most teams packed all their members onto a piece of cardboard and then moved the other piece of cardboard forward. The Red Team and the White Team, however decided to send half of their members ahead first, then have one member come back and get the remaining members.
However, strategies aside, every team except the Green Team ended up touching the ground at some point and needed to restart from the beginning. Even the Blue Team fell despite their having a chance to practice. As a result, the Green Team wins again!
The second game over, certain members of the Red, White, and Yellow Teams were still nowhere to be seen. These five people were coming in the same car (from this point onwards referred to as the Lost Car) and were carrying the materials needed for their team's games. Suddenly, we got the news: They had arrived at Pantai Merdeka! The only problem: It was the wrong Pantai Merdeka. Instead of setting their GPS navigator to "Pantai Merdeka Resort" as instructed by our transport coordinator, they had set it to Pantai Merdeka and ended up on the beach opposite ours.
Location? Fail!
No matter, it was time for lunch! The committee had already started the fire for the barbecue while the second game was being played. As we waited for the occupants of the Lost Car to figure out how to get to our location, it was time to dig into the food.
It turns out that we should have started the barbecue earlier. For not long after we had started eating, the five people from the Lost Car appeared in a motorboat on the horizon, heading towards our beach at full speed. Who knew that the smell of barbecue was the only thing that was needed to point out the way? (just kidding)
 |
| Proof: I am not joking about the boat! |
After lunch, since the all-important Lost Car cargo had arrived, the other games could proceed without a hitch.
Red Team's game: Perfect distance
Each team is given a case of needles, a reel of thread, and a block of sponge. Each team has to thread ten needles and position them on the sponge block, with each needle exactly 20mm away from the previous one. The rule is that no ruler (or mobile app with a ruler) may be used.
The distance between the needles will be measured with a caliper (because we are engineers!). The team with the average distance closest to 20mm, wins! (In case of a draw, the faster team to complete will win)
This time, it was the Red Team that won their own game. Despite taking the longest time to finish, they had the best precision in the end.
White Team's game: The egg cage
With only a limited number of straws, cellophane tape, and scissors, each team has to construct a cage for a raw egg. Each team is given 2 eggs so that they can test out their cage if they wish to. The cages will then be subjected to a four-foot drop, and the egg inside should not break.
Rule: The teams are not allowed to apply cellophane tape directly onto the eggshell, so that we can see if the egg is broken. Similarly, we must be able to see the raw egg in its cage, otherwise we will not be able to check whether it is broken.
The initial rules involved gaining points for surviving the four-foot drop. However, during the judging session, all the eggs survived extremely well, and the committee (and players) had to improvise and find better ways to test the cages.
We started off with a six-foot drop instead of a four-foot drop (because the committee ruled that Motorola products are designed to perform better than their specification). This was followed by drops from progressively higher levels, and when that still failed to determine a winner, we switched to crush tests. Instead of dropping the egg cage onto the ground, the egg cage was placed on the ground and progressively bigger rocks were dropped onto it.
In the end, the Red Team's egg surprised everyone by surviving the longest, even though its cage had taken the least time to complete.
Yellow Team's game: The bomb grid
The goal is to start from one end of a 5×6 grid and reach the other end. The members of each team has to take turns making a step. Each step can be taken forwards or sideways. If you land on a bomb, you have to start over from the beginning. If you land on a puzzle, you can continue if you manage to solve the puzzle. But if you fail to solve the puzzle, you have to start over from the beginning.
Among the puzzles were tossing a coin into a cup several feet away, a "win, lose, or draw" game, and cutting a piece of paper into the shape shown in a picture. There were time limits for the games; if you can't complete the puzzle in the allotted time, you fail the puzzle and have to start the game from the beginning.
The Yellow Team ended up winning their own game.
After that we had a bonus game designed by the committee members. We had to solve a highly complicated equation. But given that we are engineers, we overcame the impossible (please play Mission Impossible theme in your head while reading this) and managed to solve the equation, with the White Team being the quickest.
(The equation was something like
[? + (?-?)] / ? = ? (not sure whether I got it right, and I'm too lazy to verify) And we had to replace all the ? with the numbers from 1 through 5 (no repetitions))
There was also a prize for the best game, voted by the committee. The Green Team's game was chosen for its fun factor and fair play.
After a closing speech by the department head and the committee, we cleaned up the area and had tea before heading back home.
As promised at the beginning of the post, here's a short explanation. I wanted to write this immediately after the teambuilding (and I did), but I didn't post it because I was keeping it to be published in the Accessory department's newsletter first. (don't want to give a sneak preview away, you see) But when the newsletter kept getting delayed, I decided to post it anyway. But I didn't take any photos that day, and as I have mentioned before, it is a pain getting photos from people who don't really want to give them away, so here you have a photo-less post. The photos of the boat were actually sent out by my manager, but since he sent out that compiled picture instead of the originals, I don't have any zoomed-in views either.
.jpg)
Posts
