Compete against other teams to see who can build the largest tower using only one ingredient – newspaper! Newspaper Towers (also known as Build the Tower) is a great teambuilding activity involves creativity, coordination, and teamwork!
This activity works best for people ages 8 and up. It works great for groups of six to fifteen people.
Materials needed
- A lot of newspapers — be sure to recycle them!
- A timer or stopwatch
- Rolls of scotch tape
- Measuring tape
How to set up Newspaper Towers
Collect as many newspapers as possible in advance and separate them into equal piles. If you know how many people will be there, create 1 pile for each team you will have, but if you don’t know the group size just create equal piles of newspapers with some left over as spares.
How to play Newspaper Towers
- Divide the main group up into teams. Ideal size for each team is between 2 – 4 people. If you are doing this as a team-building exercise, you might consider larger teams to promote healthy communication and interactions, otherwise 4 should be your maximum group size.
- Give each group an equal pile of newspaper and a roll of tape. Ensure that you have some spare newspapers in case one team ends up needing them for any reason.
- Set your timer for around 5-10 minutes or prepare your stopwatch. On your signal, all teams should go to their newspaper piles and begin working. The goal of the game is to build the largest tower out of only newspapers. Teams can use any sort of design methods they would like as long as only the newspaper is being used and no assistance is given by glue, tape, staples, or anything else.
- Once the designated amount of time expires, all teams must immediately stop working on their towers – and hope they stay up! Go around and inspect the towers, being sure to measure each tower to find out which one is the tallest of them all. Also check that only newspaper was used with no other supplies. Any tower that falls over before its height is judged cannot be repaired or built again.
Winning the game
The winner of this game is the team that successfully builds the tallest tower using only newspaper and tape. Any tower design is acceptable as well as any building method, as long as the teams are only using the provided supplies of newspaper. For a harder game, use less (or no) tape.
Alternatively, you could judge based on a point system that give credit for artistic designs and creativity as well as the height of the tower.