Leadership, Friday, 3rd Period

[emoclops.livejournal.com]

Scott sent out an e-mail letting his students know that they were going to be meeting in the Danger Shop this week. And as probably half the class knew, when you put Scott Summers in charge of a group in a room whose name began with 'Danger,' things were going to get pretty interactive.

This was probably a different kind of interactive than those people were thinking, though. You could probably tell that by the fact that Scott was holding a balloon in the middle of a park on a sunny day.

"A crucial part of leadership is understanding how to actually work in a team," Scott said, kicking things off. "So today, we're going to be doing a small team-building exercise."

"I've put you into four teams of four. You're going to be building balloon towers. The goal is to build the tallest tower you can before the end of the period using nothing but the provided balloons, rolls of masking tape, and your wits. And if anyone here has powers, those are forbidden for this exercise," Scott said. "So no flying up to dangle a string of balloons from the top of the room, no telekinesis to stabilize the tower. If you do that, I'll use one of my powers."

Scott pulled out a remote and pointed it at the balloon he was holding. It popped. No, he wasn't going to use optic blasts for that.

"Good luck."

Was that a suspicious smirk as he said that? Nah, couldn't be.

Comments

Balloon Towers

[emoclops.livejournal.com]

Get into your assigned groups and start building towers using nothing but balloons, masking tape, and your wits. No powers.

Tower 1: Anakin Solo / Ben Skywalker / Cara / Rebecca Logan

[emoclops.livejournal.com]

You get red balloons.

Re: Tower 1: Anakin Solo / Ben Skywalker / Cara / Rebecca Logan

[wrongkindofsith]

Cara was not, repeat, was not playing with a balloon. It's just that there weren't any in the Midlands, and she hadn't really had a chance to handle one before while she was here, so naturally she had to test it to see exactly how it worked and what kind of stress it would hold up to.

So that was what she was doing.

Regardless of how it looked.

She wasn't smiling as she tested it either.

Re: Tower 1: Anakin Solo / Ben Skywalker / Cara / Rebecca Logan

[zetabetabrat.livejournal.com]

"Well, don't pop it," Rebecca said after a moment of eyeing Cara. Then to the group at large, she clapped her hands and declared, "Okay. Strategy." She took in the setup of the 'park.' "I say we tie a whole bunch of them together, then release then so they collide with that tree over there and can't float away. And then we can start building down from there."

Bossy, bossy, bossy.

Re: Tower 1: Anakin Solo / Ben Skywalker / Cara / Rebecca Logan

[wrongkindofsith]

And the totally not a smile was instantly replaced by a flat glare. If Cara had been trying to pop it, it would have already been popped.

"Because there's nothing in that tree that could possibly burst these," she said. "Like the twigs and branches."

They were going to get along swimmingly.

Re: Tower 1: Anakin Solo / Ben Skywalker / Cara / Rebecca Logan

[zetabetabrat.livejournal.com]

...right.

"Then it'll pop maybe one or two of them," Rebecca countered dismissively, as if she'd planned for that all along. (She hadn't.) "And the rest of them will still be up high."

Re: Tower 1: Anakin Solo / Ben Skywalker / Cara / Rebecca Logan

[wrongkindofsith]

"And do you intend on climbing up high to attach the rest of the balloons?"

Cara was more than capable of it, but the person who came up with the stupid plan should have to carry it out. Plus the list of people she was inclined to take orders from was very, very small. Guess who wasn't on it?

Re: Tower 1: Anakin Solo / Ben Skywalker / Cara / Rebecca Logan

[zetabetabrat.livejournal.com]

Might it be Rebecca?

"Not in this skirt," Rebecca retorted. "Anyway, don't worry. There are boys on our team."

Boys she was now batting her eyelashes at if they were here. Oh, Rebecca, good luck with that.

Tower 2: Alex Aaron / Alice Cullen / Jack Carter / Tony Stark

[emoclops.livejournal.com]

You get blue balloons.

Re: Tower 2: Alex Aaron / Alice Cullen / Jack Carter / Tony Stark

[exactlyaverage.livejournal.com]

Jack took a look at his balloons and then at the rest of the group.

"Maybe we can just rub them against our head and then stick them against the wall for support?" he suggested.

Re: Tower 2: Alex Aaron / Alice Cullen / Jack Carter / Tony Stark

[godofxbox]

"We have the tape," Alex pointed out. "And balloons don't weigh very much...I think you can get a pretty tall tower if you use the right shape. Right?" he asked, hypothetically to the group at large, but if he seemed to be looking more at Tony Stark if he was there, well, what was the point of a supergenius if you didn't use him?

Re: Tower 2: Alex Aaron / Alice Cullen / Jack Carter / Tony Stark

[hoorayimrich.livejournal.com]

It's what he did best. Oh, and making poor choices. He was the Wolverine of that.

Tony was working away on hi phone, designing something that was structurally sound. "Shouldn't be too hard with the tape."

Re: Tower 2: Alex Aaron / Alice Cullen / Jack Carter / Tony Stark

[godofxbox]

Alex felt like his 'make Tony Stark come up with the plan' plan was coming along great. "How are we going to make it real tall if we can't use powers?" he asked. "I don't know if any of us have powers that could help with that anyway, but...maybe if we build it on its side and then tip it up? Since it won't weigh anything."

Re: Tower 2: Alex Aaron / Alice Cullen / Jack Carter / Tony Stark

[hoorayimrich.livejournal.com]

"We build it on the ground and then prop it up, duh." Thank you, Mr. Engineer.

Tower 3: Britta Perry / Quinn Fabray / Susan Sto Helit / Warren Worthington III

[emoclops.livejournal.com]

You get yellow balloons.

Re: Tower 3: Britta Perry / Quinn Fabray / Susan Sto Helit / Warren Worthington III

[wwiii]

Warren was not at all frowning about the 'no powers' thing. Really.

"I guess the easiest way for us to do this would be for each of us to make smaller towers, and then stick them together as they get too big for one person to handle? We don't want to be tripping over one another, all trying to add to the same chain at once," he suggested, looking thoughtfully at the balloons and tape.

Re: Tower 3: Britta Perry / Quinn Fabray / Susan Sto Helit / Warren Worthington III

[chief-cheerio.livejournal.com]

"I guess that makes sense," Quinn concurred. She'd been preoccupied bouncing a balloon lightly off the sides of her hands. "I mean, I'm not exactly an engineer, but that doesn't sound hard."

Re: Tower 3: Britta Perry / Quinn Fabray / Susan Sto Helit / Warren Worthington III

[inaskinnyway.livejournal.com]

"We may also want to designate one person to put all the smaller pieces together, to streamline things," Susan suggested, eyeing the tape and glaring at a balloon like she was trying to send a message to it that if any of the balloons popped there was going to be a Problem and it had better tell the rest of its little balloon friends that.

Re: Tower 3: Britta Perry / Quinn Fabray / Susan Sto Helit / Warren Worthington III

[shestheworst.livejournal.com]

"Couldn't we, like, start out with some small balloons and add a bigger balloon base to the bottom and keep building them up from the bottom?" Britta offered, frowning and hoping her tone made it clear that she was hardly a balloon building expert herself. "That way, like, I don't know. How hard can it be to keep lifting balloons to add more to the bottom, and if you tape them, maybe they won't topple?"

And then, before she could help it, there was a small grunt and a murmur of, "I swear, this is totally stupid assignment day or something."

Tower 4: Bobby Drake / James of Krondor / Karla / Squall Leonhart

[emoclops.livejournal.com]

You get green balloons.

Re: Tower 4: Bobby Drake / James of Krondor / Karla / Squall Leonhart

[glacial_queen]

No powers?

Okay, Karla could handle no powers. She just has to put her extensive engineering experience to the test.

"So, anyone have ideas?"

...Sorry, that was extensive delegating powers. Delegating. Right.

She glanced at her groupmates. "For height, I can probably stand on people's shoulders, yes? Or we could assemble it on its side first and then stand it up?"

Re: Tower 4: Bobby Drake / James of Krondor / Karla / Squall Leonhart

[longislandiceme]

"We can't just attach the balloons randomly," Bobby added thoughtfully. "Any that are a bit bigger should be on the bottom, and the smaller ones should be on top."

Re: Tower 4: Bobby Drake / James of Krondor / Karla / Squall Leonhart

[glacial_queen]

"Should we also anchor it to the ground somehow?" Karla asked. "Like...a root system made of masking tape or something?"

Re: Tower 4: Bobby Drake / James of Krondor / Karla / Squall Leonhart

[whateverknight.livejournal.com]

"Tape isn't going to stick to the ground," Squall mused. "But once we have the tower base put together, we could bury it."

He shrugged. "The tower needs to be pyramidal. Wider on top than on the bottom, and built out of triangles. We can make an open latticework out of balloons taped together, and cross-brace it with long pieces of tape."

Re: Tower 4: Bobby Drake / James of Krondor / Karla / Squall Leonhart

[squire-hand.livejournal.com]

"Make a series of pyramids?" James suggested. "Attach each section together until complete."