Tangen Project

This week the Tangen Project provided us with the most amount of routine for the entire semester. The previous week as a class we created 8 challenging team building games for Russ kids to focus on becoming a cohesive group. This was an opportunity to give us experience in improving some of our teaching/veileading skills like communication, organisation, decision making and even first aid skills.

Robbie, Brad and I created a River Crossing game that would focus on the elements of communication, decision making whilst racing against the clock which added pressure to the group. The game require little equipment to but a good set of thorough rules to challenge and provoke different strategies to crossing the river. We had almost 30 groups over the week and each group had a different strategy, this reflects how every group is unique and dynamic in the way it regulates itself. This was another opportunity to really see analyse how groups were performing and what stage they were in according to Tuckmans (1965) Theory.

River Crossing Equipment included:

  1. Wooden planks (2x)
  2. Platforms (8x)
  3. Bucket
  4. Carabiner
  5. Long pole with a hook on the end
  6. Rope (for rope swing & Boundary) (2x)

By the end of the first session each group was crossing faster and faster, therefore we interested the difficulty by having them cross the river in silence. This would promote the group to discuss and plan a sound strategy that everyone understood before attempting the game. Even implementing this rule still had most groups finish under 10 minutes leaving with another 15 – 20 minutes of the session, so we made use of this time and played GLO (Games with Low Organisation). These games included black magic, magic sticks, magical pen, helium stick. Playing this games as well as defining the game rules of River Crossing with each group gave me boost in confidence in conducting this team building and GLO’s in the future.

Other Team Building Games:

  1. Orienteering
    1. The group was given basic navigational skills then required to find as many (10) markers in the surrounding forest. The group was given one map.
  2. Night Line
    1. The group would split up in pairs. One would be blinded folded holding onto a guided rope while the other partner would just use communication to help navigate them safety through the course.
  3. Slack Line
    1. Groups would attempt to cross two set up slack lines both individually and in partners. There would be guiding ropes to assist with balance when trying to cross in different ways.
  4. Rope Swing
    1. Groups would attempt to cross a ‘lava field’ by using the rope swing, the entire group must cross to pass and are allowed to use nature around them to assist.
  5. Fire Building
    1. Groups were given flint and steel, tinder and a small amount of dry branches to create a fire that was able to burn through a piece of string set up 30 cm above the fire.
  6. Shelter Building
    1. Groups are given dead tree branches, rope and asked to only gather dead nature around them to enforce leave no trace principles. They had 25 minutes to create a shelter big enough for the groups whilst being judged on speed, comfort, construction strength and teamwork.
  7. Barefoot walk
    1. Groups would take off their shoes then walk blind folded across a number of different textures attempting to remember the order (dirt, sand, rocks, gravel, snow, grass, flowers, sticks, water, etc). Afterwards groups would be challenged to create the biggest shoe tower possible.

All these games have been added to my professional portfolio with a description of rules and list of equipment needed to carry these games. These games will definitely come in handy as I have multiple camps back home where games like this are always used! Everyone was happy running their own game for the week rather than rotating. This provided us with a detailed overview of how the game is played, the pro’s and con’s and how you can alter and adapt the game for different groups. However it would have been nice to run other team building games and see how the same groups function in a different situation.

As a class we had free time in the woods when waiting for the next groups to arrive. A lot of was spent relaxing, socialising and getting to know the great people around me even more. We went for a couple walks up to the closest mountain along the ridge line, played spikeball, walked down the flume and made it to the massive dam.

One afternoon we had to stretcher out a student that ‘bruised’ his ankle playing slack line. This student was a built and was easily the heaviest student (100kg) of the session which definitely challenged the 4 of us carrying him. Sam and I volunteered to help two other Norwegians students carrying him out following the emergency train tracks. Even though I doubted the severity of the students injury I still tried to take something positive out of this experience. What I learnt was that having 4 people rotating in pairs to carry the guy is far easier on your grip strength and being able to having a break than all 4 of you carrying him on each corner.

Sam and I hammocked on the same trees right by Tom and Marijn. We got our sleeping arrangement dialled in with me being on top giving Sam 30 cm of spare space between my ass and his face or else it was too difficult to get into my hammock. I’ve never slept in a hammock for more than one night so I decided to trial both a super slack banana shaped hammock compared to really tight and almost straight hammock. The banana shaped definitely affected my back the next day this is why I preferred the tighter hammock as it was the closest thing to a bed. The last night I hammocked in Norway I made the mistake of not having a insulated mat; I was cold the entire night and got zero sleep. Having the insulated mat this time obviously kept me warm however it would move during the night. Len mentioned that he had a hammock which included a sleeve for a mat which mitigated any movement. Overall my week long hammock experience was great as now I’m considering hammocking in summer back home as it’s easier to set up, lighter than my current tent and packs down smaller.

This week has been great experience for both professional and personal development. Personally I’ve been able to gain closer relationships with friends. Whilst professionally I’ve been able to challenge my teaching/veileading skills with our River Crossing game boosting my confidence in being a position of authority/leadership. I’ve been able to gather plenty of GLO and team building games that were successful for future use.