Tower of Terror PE Game: Blindfolds, Buckets, and Teamwork

Greetings PE Nation!

Don't be scared! Tower of Terror is a strategic PE game featuring bucket stacking with scooters, blindfolds, and teamwork despite its scary-sounding name. The game builds from simple scooter relays to complex strategic challenges where teams must decide between building their tower and attempting to knock down opponents' structures.

• Teams of 4-5 students use scooters to transport buckets and build pyramid structures
• Round one involves basic bucket transport and stacking
• Round two adds a "driver" who pushes the scooter rider
• Round three incorporates blindfolds for the drivers with verbal guidance from riders
• Round four turns the activity into a competitive race
• Round five introduces Gatorskin balls that blindfolded players can throw to knock down opposing towers
• Color-coding buckets and equipment helps with organization
• Students rotate positions throughout the game for maximum participation
• Safety with blindfolds must be emphasized before and during play

Check out the links and videos below!

Dave

Tower of Terror video

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Chapters

• 0:10 Welcome to Tower of Terror
• 1:03 Game Setup and Round One
• 2:59 Adding Blindfolds and Racing
• 4:37 Strategic Gameplay with Gatorskin Balls
• 6:22 Safety Tips and Final Thoughts

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:10

Hello and welcome to the Supersize Fizzhead podcast. My name is Dave and today I want to revisit a game that I played a long time ago called the Tower of Terror, and it sounds scary, but's not. It's not scary at all. So, without further ado, here we go. All right, pe Nation, welcome in.

Speaker 1: 0:44

So there's a game I played recently that I haven't played in a long time, called the Tower of Terror. I just kind of named it after the riot at MGM Studio, I think Somewhere in Disney, yeah, and you know it sounds scary but it's not, of course, right. And in this game we just have a lot of fun and I want to go over and there's a lot of strategy to this game. So I want to go over all the different levels or rounds or builds or whatever you want to call them, and just how we play it, and I'm going to link the video actually videos to the games or to the game in, uh, in the show notes. So it's a lot fun If you have the equipment and the room for it, and probably it's more of like a one class game, I think you're really going to enjoy it, because I played with two classes before and there's a lot, that's a lot of people. So this is kind of a one class game. You can do it too if your pavilion or your space is big enough, but this is really a one class game.

Speaker 1: 1:43

Let me start with round one. I'm not gonna make this a boomer, but I'll just talk about it here. So, round one there's, um, about four to five people per line per uh team. You can have up to six only because there's six buckets, but I'd rather, uh, just for movement purposes, be well, really, an even number be the best. If there's four, that's probably the best, but it doesn't really matter as long as it's around four to five, six at the most on a team with one scooter, and what they're going to do is just kind of scoot down, bring a bucket and they're putting it down in like a building area that you created, and they uh just put again one bucket down and they're making a pyramid. They're making like the three, uh, then two, then one, like a called a six stack and cup stacking with a bucket, though and hopefully you, if you have the means to color code everything, that's the best way where, like the yellow scooter, they're bringing yellow buckets, because as you go a little further, the colors matter a little more. So again, round one, you're just bringing the buckets, because as you go a little further, the colors matter a little more. So again, round one, you're just bringing the buckets down one at a time and then that's it, just build.

Speaker 1: 2:54

Round two you take them down, but you add a person pushing. Now you could do this in round one as well, where there's somebody pushing the I guess I call them the the driver is pushing the, I don't know, I don't know what I call them, but somebody's pushing, like just guiding by their shoulders or their upper back, I guess, and pushing, you know, not too hard, and we go over that, just pushing them down and then collecting the buckets one at a time and bring them back, or spend a whole round just bring them down, bring them back. But it's all about control and that's a control part right there. So that's, round two is adding the driver, and round three then is this where it gets a little dicey adding the blindfolds. So now the person that's pushing I guess the driver, he or she has a blindfold, and I what I was doing at least the last time I played it was everybody gets a blindfold, it's just the person sitting on the scooter does not have a blindfold on at the time and they are telling them left to right or forward or backwards, slow down, whatever they're given the directions and the person driving, they have the blindfold on. And again it's the same thing. We're just bringing a bucket down and putting it down in the right area and bringing it back. So it's real simple. Except we had blindfolds. So that was round three. I believe Round four. We make it more of a race. I guess you could say it's either way. It's a race. I guess we're in round three, but it's more of a race. Who gets it up first and then you do down stacking and then that's round five is where it gets a lot of fun.

Speaker 1: 4:37

I put out gator skin balls and I like to color code them. But if I don't have that and I don't have it this year, where I have exactly six of yellow and six of red I just randomly scatter the Gatorskin balls around the pavilion and they have to make a decision, or I can give them the ball. I think the last time I just gave them two Gatorskin balls per line and they have to make a decision. They can build one bucket at a time, or if they notice another team is getting way ahead of them. They could bring down a Gatorskin ball and go down to the throwing area. They can go down that and then they have to blindfold. It's kind of funny. Blindfolded they have to try to throw at one of the bucket stacks, at somebody else's bucket stack, and try to knock it down. If they do, that other team has to start over. So it could go a lot longer. But it's funny watching the person without the blindfold try to line up the person with the blindfold. It has worked.

Speaker 1: 5:38

People have knocked other teams' buckets down, but it's kind of funny watching them line up. But it's also very strategic because they talk about well, what's the best strategy? Oh, green team's winning, so let's bring a ball, or we're winning, so let's keep bringing the buckets. And there's even teams that were bringing a dodgeball down round, like first round. I'm like why? What's the reason behind that? No, you're not going to knock anybody's stuff down because nobody's built anything yet. So it's just lot of questioning, a lot of talking, some team strategy, and I know I didn't mention this before, but I just thought of this.

Speaker 1: 6:14

Let's say it's an odd number of students in a line. Let's say it's five. So the first person sits, the second person drives and then the person who's sitting goes to the end of the line. The person who's driving with the blindfold on sits on the scooter and the next person drives. So it's okay if you have an odd number or whatever you have. That's kind of how I did the rotation, so it doesn't have to be like two people go, then the next two people go. It gets to be a rotation. So that's the main game.

Speaker 1: 6:44

That is Tower of Terror. It's a lot of fun, it's a lot of strategy and you can add different things to it if you want. But those are the main rules of the game. You can even just start with no scooters, just run down and do the bucket sex and make it a relay race, but always make sure you don't have like 10 kids in a line. I've seen that before on different games and stuff. Let's have, you know, at the most. Well, again, six in a line would be the most, because there's six buckets. But I'd rather do more, like four in a line, four or five. So that is Tower of Terror.

Speaker 1: 7:15

I'm going to put everything in the show notes. I'm not going to do a Cowboy Tip of the Day. I think we covered it and I hope you give it a try. It's a lot of fun and the kids enjoy doing anything with blindfolds on as long as we're safe and you, as long as we're safe and you go over the rules ahead of time of you know being very safe with blindfolds, cause that's that's really key. I don't want crashes and things like that. So go to supersizephysedcom for more information or check out all the links in the show notes for more goodies and more things you could sign up for or get for free um at my website. So take care of PE nation. You guys and girls are awesome. Let's keep pushing our profession forward, thank you.