If you’ve been a AYOBA Follower , you know we love variations of Pipeline (Gutter Ball). Here is an idea of one’s we’ve used over the years during our team building sessions:
‘Circle Run’
- Group is in a circle – each person with a channel (like the image above).
- Every other person has a marble/ball in their channel or, to make it easier, every third person.
- One player has a distinguishable marble/ball – or we can call it the ‘Pace Car’.
- Time movement of all the objects around the circle, through the channels.
- Only one object can be in any one channel at a time.
- When the Pace Car gets back to the player it started with time stops.
- Add 5 seconds to the overall time for every dropped object.
- A restart happens if two marbles end up in one channel.
After reading about Pipeline Activities (Gutter Ball), We would start with just one marble going around the circle of channels. This will give the group a chance to warm up and start talking to each other with fewer ‘problems’ to solve. Then I would add a second marble, each starting at opposite sides of the circle. This will change the attention and communication behaviors of the group. Then add a third marble… You see where this is going.
To make this work, there will need to be at least one open channel between two marbles. Groups of 8 to 15 participants will make it a good challenge. If you have more than 15 in a group, divide them into groups of at least 8 players.
This is a good version of Pipeline (Gutter Ball) to use if you don’t have the room for a traveling leap-frogging line. You don’t need a lot of space to form circles with your groups.
Have fun out there!
Courtesy of Chris Cavert, Ed.D.
