Team building · teams of 4 · 6 classrooms · 6 periods
Ten cups, one rubber band, four strings, and nobody may touch a cup. Each class crowns a winner, the six classrooms in a period race each other, and every period ends with a champion — six in all.
Up to eight teams inside one class period. Single elimination, fastest legal pyramid takes the match. Every teacher runs this in every period.
Produces one winner per class, per period.
The six winners from that same period — one from Brown, Parrot, Schick, Malbec, Gifford, and Mason — race each other head-to-head.
Produces that period's champion.
Every period crowns its own champion, so nobody has to be pulled out of another teacher's class to compete. Six periods, six titles.
No single school champion — six equal champions.
Real Solo cups stack and slide better than generic brands. At 8 teams a period that is 80 cups on the cart.
Standard size. It is the only thing that ever touches a cup.
About 2 feet each, tied evenly around the rubber band — one per teammate.
Four people, four strings, one band. Pull together and the band opens wide enough to drop over a cup; relax together and it clamps down and lifts.
Target: 10 cups, four rows
All ten cups must end in the pyramid. Nothing left on the table, nothing on the floor.
Starting layout on the table
Set every team's ten cups out the same way. Flipping cups without touching them is half the challenge.
You may only hold the string at the very end.
No choking up on the string. Sliding a hand down the line is the most common thing a ref will catch.
You may not touch the cups with any part of your body.
Hands, elbows, sleeves, chins, the table edge you nudge it against — all of it counts.
The ref puts one cup on the floor. The team may recover it — with the tool only.
The ref chooses where it lands, so the team cannot get a strategic placement out of it. No hands on the way down and no hands on the way back up. All ten cups still have to end up in the pyramid, so the cost of a violation is the time it takes to go get it. Assign a student ref to each match so you are not calling every foul yourself.
Four cups on the bottom, then three, then two, then one. Talking allowed. Expect a lot of noise and very little progress for the first few minutes — that is the point.
Two teams build at the same table on the same "go." First team with a finished, legal pyramid wins the match and advances. Give every team one untimed practice build before the bracket starts.
Single elimination · fastest legal pyramid advances
Every classroom keeps its own brackets. Pick a name above to switch boards, then run one bracket per period. Winners drop straight into Level 2, and everything saves in this browser.
The six classrooms racing in one period. Each slot fills in automatically from that classroom's Level 1 bracket — type over any slot whose teacher ran their bracket somewhere else. Classroom names are editable and apply to every period.
Six periods, six champions. This fills in as each period championship is decided.
Which characteristic was your group strongest in during the activity? Explain.
Which characteristic does your group need to work on? Explain.
Why was teamwork so important for this activity?
Why is teamwork so important to be successful in life?
Pick from these nine
Work together as a team to accomplish a difficult task without quitting or giving up.
Activity adapted from Point Source Science · Cup Stacking Team Building Activity