Team Building Activity: Butterfly Effect

Butterfly Effect

Kaizen Coaching and Team Building is proud to present its latest creation — a corporate activity that won't leave anyone indifferent, a new challenge, ideal for turning a classic indoor Team Building activity for this time of year, when the weather isn't cooperative, into a day full of light and fun, without skimping on creativity and self-improvement, since this challenge isn't suited to just anyone.

Since the dawn of time, humanity, driven by its immense curiosity to discover, recreate or invent, in its eagerness to evolve, has invented and created devices, contraptions and machines to make our lives easier or more efficient. It's also intrinsically human to need leisure and fun, and more or less sophisticated toys have always been created in pursuit of those moments of relaxation so necessary in our free time. We wanted to combine these two needs, and we've created an extraordinary, original and challenging Team Building activity, in our drive to offer exclusive, innovative corporate activities, especially for companies that have been running team building days for years and are tired of always being offered the same type of activity.

This team building activity is based on Rube Goldberg machines — Rube Goldberg was a multi-talented engineer, sculptor, writer and cartoonist who, in the 1920s, created a comic strip called Inventions of Professor Lucifer Gorgonzola Butts. In this series, Goldberg drew labelled schematic diagrams of the fictional professor Lucifer Gorgonzola Butts's comic "inventions", giving rise to the phenomenon we know today.

A Rube Goldberg machine is an excessively sophisticated device that performs a fairly simple task in a deliberately indirect, elaborate way, usually using a chain reaction, also known as the domino effect. The best examples of these grandiose machines have an element of anticipation. The fact that something so absurd is happening can only be topped by the fact that it happens in an uncertain way. A Rube Goldberg machine usually has at least ten steps, and in our team building activity we'll work with around 25 everyday objects, resulting in roughly 25 steps.

There's a huge variety of Rube Goldberg machines in film and TV shows, with the famous video from indie band OK Go being one of the most-watched in YouTube history, a discovery for most people. Brands like Honda, in an advertisement for its Accord model, show car parts interacting with one another in a way similar to a Rube Goldberg machine.

But back to our team building activity — we can confirm it's a corporate activity full of energy and drive to overcome challenges, resulting in a great sense of success and reward for a job well done. It's clear that the sense of achievement is much more rewarding the more the challenge in front of us demands our best and pushes us out of our comfort zone. And all in a highly fun, enjoyable way, perfect for fostering cohesion among a company's employees.

In our fantastic team building activity, we'll split attendees into several teams, who'll compete to design and build their own contraption, which must use 25 everyday objects, combined in such a way that, starting with a delicious plate of cheese, they manage to catch a soft, cuddly stuffed mouse, in a sophisticated, creative, yet highly efficient way. The 25 elements we'll use are: a table, a wooden barrel, a plate with delicious cheddar cheese, a wool scarf, a white plastic bowling pin, an Ikea-style metal bin, a stack of books, a glass milk bottle, a small bucket with a handle, a wooden baseball bat, a tall glass, a balloon, steel thread, various pieces of wood, several rolls of duct tape, a wooden cane, a metal bucket with a handle and front spout, a fruit scale, metal wire, a metal saw, a cactus in a large plastic pot, a traditional old-fashioned broom, several concrete blocks, a basketball, a birdcage on a stand, and a wooden ramp.

The team building activity is expected to last between two and three hours — enough time for them to get organised, plan, assign roles, and make sure everyone knows their task, while also understanding the shared goal and the specifics of the team building activity. They'll have time to design, adjust, test, and, ultimately, make sure their Rube Goldberg machine's complex mechanism works perfectly. They can use trial and error to address any flaws, fix misalignments, and make sure the end result is optimal.

The winning team of the team building day will be decided based on criteria such as: creativity, aesthetics, functionality, use of materials, and group dynamics. This activity offers the chance to boost the company's core values among team members. They'll need to communicate effectively, find suitable designs, solve problems as they arise, and find the perfect balance between originality, functionality, and attention to detail.

We work with a range of venues, both for corporate events in Madrid and in Barcelona — hotels, country estates, farmhouses, exclusive and original spaces that will make the day perfect and memorable for a long time. We also offer all kinds of catering, transport, or any other service needed to make sure the corporate activity is a success.

Don't hesitate to get in touch with Kaizen Coaching and Team Building — with more than 10 years in the sector, we guarantee your team building day will be a complete success. We look forward to hearing from you.