The Collector

Create an obstacle course as shown in the illustration. Use equipment suitable for the target group (age, level, purpose) and what you have available.

Participants can work individually or in teams. The task is either to collect the most balls within a certain time, or for example, to be the first team to collect ten balls in the exchange zone.

How to play:

• Before starting, participants roll a die.
• If, for example, you roll a 1, 3, or 5, you can take one ball from the box through the obstacle course and place it in the exchange zone.
• When time is up, the team with the most balls in the exchange zone wins.

Then the game can be reversed:

• If you roll a 1, 3, or 5, you take one ball from the exchange zone back to the box.
• The team that gets rid of all the balls first wins.

The die makes the outcome partly random, and the team with the fewest balls after the first round gets a slight advantage in round two.

Subject Connection

The content of the box can be adapted to various subjects:

• Numbers on slips of paper in different colors: children should add, multiply, or divide the numbers according to color.
• Competition to collect the highest possible total sum.
• Geography: at the start, children have a sheet with countries, and in the box are slips with capitals. The task is to retrieve slips and place the capitals correctly.
• Language: slips with letters are collected and put together to form words (e.g., nouns, adjectives, etc.).

Variations

• Length of the course
• Type and difficulty of the obstacles
• Group size
• Give participants gradually more demanding tasks in the obstacle course (more obstacles, more coordination, additional academic challenges).