Introduction: Team Building - the Quarantine Edition - a Video Call Quiz

By instagram.com/ruudcreates
About: I'm a mechanical engineer in the Eindhoven region. In my spare time I like to make random stuff, both usefull and especially useless.

Just before the government told all of us to stay at home I told my colleagues I would organize a fun team building activity. Not easily defeated I set myself the task of coming up with something worth calling a great team building activity by video call. We had a great evening and after the success I already played it a second time with some friends.

In this Instructable you can find out what I came up with and how you can organize this for your colleagues or friends.

If you did this quiz, share an "I made it" by showing all the toilet paper stockpile pictures obtained during the quiz.

Step 1: About the Quarantine Quiz

What is it, and how does it work? The Quarantine Quiz is exactly what it says it is. It is a quiz you can do with a group of people while being quarantined at home. The quiz is held by a video call with all participants, including the host. The quiz works as follows:

  • Every participant (including the host) will make a round with 10 questions which he or she will present themselves, let's call this participant the quiz master.
    • Answers to the questions are sent to the quiz master. Choose a method you like most for that, WhatsApp, Mail, Text message, etc.
    • The quiz master will do the counting of that round and will send the outcome to the host. The outcome is send including the maximum amount of point that could be obtained during the round.
    • Themes for the round can be anything the quiz master wants, hobbies, work, interests, politics, music, news, etc. Examples of themes I've seen:
      • woodworking
      • Covid-19
      • city history
      • Dutch mayors
    • The quiz master can decide freely on the points per question, the host will correct for it after the quiz has ended.
    • Also the difficulty of the rounds will not matter, the host also corrects for this. But keep in mind that too difficult questions don't make for a fun quiz. Multiple choice makes for a nice difficulty most of the time.
    • The round can be presented however the quiz master wants. Use powerpoint, listen to music, show items, etc.
    • My example round is added the the last step.
  • After every quiz-round there will be a photo-round.
    • The photo-rounds will be made by the host.
    • All participants (including the host itself) will have to make a picture and share it with the group. Make the rounds such that you as a host cannot prepare up front.
    • This round should make the entire thing fun and interactive, so make the questions with that in mind.
    • One of the photo-rounds should be to make a photo of their stockpile of toilet paper, it is after all a quarantine quiz.
    • Other examples:
      • Make a picture of you appearing in the jungle. Participants probably make a selfie while sticking their heads in a plant they have in their house.
      • Show you take good care of yourself and you don't snack too fast. Where is the snackplate? Do they have popcorn or M&M's?
      • One of the later questions can be: "You all probably wonder WHY I made up these stupid photo-rounds. The question is not WHY, but YMCA. Show yourself as one of the village people."

The following 4 steps are repeated for every participant, including the host. In total expect approximately 20-25 minutes per participant.

  • A quiz round takes approximately 10 minutes.
  • After the round has ended, the host takes over and explains the requested photo of that photo-round.
  • The answers of the quiz AND the photo should be in within 5 minutes after the host explained the photo-round. The host will make a counter for it. All answers which are not send in time won't count for points.
  • Once every answer is in, it is time for the quiz master to provide the participants with the answers.

Step 2: How to Organize

Before you have the quiz, it should be organized. Here are some things you can and/or should keep in mind.

  • Don't invite too many people. With 20-25 minutes per participants I like to have 7 participants (or rounds) at most. More than that and the quiz will take too long.
  • Explain the rules up front about the quiz round.
  • Give them some secret assignments upfront, you can check whether they did it with the photo-rounds. For example:
    • Take care of your own drinks and snacks. --> Make a picture of your snack plate.
  • Start the video call an hour early so people have some time before the quiz just to talk. How is everyone doing in these times?
  • Make sure you have a price for the winner. Find out more in the winner announcement step.
  • Ask for the themes of the quiz rounds up front. If two participant happen to have the same theme, you can try to arrange one of them to change it. The more different themes, the more fun the quiz will be.
  • If people live together, of course a partner can join.

Step 3: Scoring

You as a host have the most important task, you have to make sure all points from all rounds are gathered and combine them to have a winner in the end. This is how the scoring goes:

  • All quiz-rounds are normalized. That means divide the amount of points someone scored by the maximum amount of points which could be obtained that round and multiply it by 10.
  • The quiz-master will get the average amount of points obtained in his or her round. This is to eliminate the difficulty of the round.
  • All photo-rounds earn a maximum of 1 point if the participants did a good job in taking the picture.
  • The toilet paper stockpile will earn a wooping point for every toilet paper roll you can count. Yes, I know, the biggest hoarder will probably win the quiz. But as I told my colleagues, it is important that we make sure our best quarantine survivor wins the quiz. That means he or she is smart and has enough toilet paper to last a looooooong time.

I have created a Google spreadsheet here in which you can just put the numbers and it will calculate the winner for you. It even provides you with a nice graph about who scored what in which round. Only fill in the green cells.

Step 4: Announcing the Winner

And the winner is ....

Well, I've included everything in this tutorial to have a great team building activity. At the end however only one can win. You better spell the name of the winner correct on that winning roll of toilet paper. (Yes, again a roll of toilet paper. We need to make sure our best quarantine survivor has even more chances of surviving.)

Pro-tips:

  • Don't use a used roll for the prize.
  • Spray the pieces you want to write on with some kind of spray lacquer. This will prevent the ink to spread when writing on the toilet paper.

Step 5: Making & Crafts Quiz Round

I've made my round into 5 mini themes. All of them are based on crafts I did since we had to stay home, good luck.

Question 1 - Woodworking:

I will show 3 drills, which of these drill is not shown here.

a. Spur wood drill

b. Auger drill

c. Countersink drill

d. Forstner drill

Question 2 - Woodworking:

Give the name of the shown screwdrivers tips.

Question 3 - Sewing:

Which of the following 3 sewing feet is the zipper feet?

Question 4 - Sewing:

I show an example of a machine stitch, how is this one called?

a. Point stitch

b. Zigzag stitch

c. Pinking stitch

Question 5 - 3D printing:

Most hobby printers have a Cartesian frame style. Another often used type of frame style has 3 stepper motors all moving in Z-direction. What is the name of this frame style?

a. Alpha printer

b. Beta printer

c. Gamma printer

d. Delta printer

Questions 6 - 3D printing:

Put the following 3 materials in order of print temperature, starting with the lowest.

a. ABS

b. PC

c. PLA

Question 7 - Tools:

Which of the following Weber GBS tools is not sold by Weber (in the Netherlands).

a. Waffle iron

b. Sear grate

c. Mini pancake iron

d. Smoke oven

Question 8 - Tools:

Which of the following Makita battery powered tools is not sold by Makita.

a. Coffeemachine

b. Ventilated vest

c. Wheelbarrow

d. Mini fridge

Question 9 - Paper:

The dragon is made by a certain paper technique. You download a template, cut and fold the paper, and afterward glue it into shape. What is the name of this technique?

a. Papercraft

b. Fold-and-Cut

c. Kirigami

Question 10 - Paper:

I needed 28 sheets of a4-paper for the dragon. What is the exact surface area of a piece of A4 paper?

Work From Home Speed Challenge

Participated in the
Work From Home Speed Challenge