Reverse Pyramid Activity

The Reverse Pyramid is an activity that forces people to be active, thinking about strategies, assuming roles and responsibilities.

Create small groups of five to seven players. If you have enough cups and tables, one facilitator can manage as many as 10 groups building at a time.

Give each group a nested stack of 36 cups and a designated building area. For each small group, your objective is to build the tallest pyramid using the cups provided.

In our definition, a pyramid consists of stacked rows of cups (not a nested stack) in which each row will have one less cup than the row below it. For this build however, you are required to start form the top row of the pyramid – one cup.

To begin, set this one cup down on your building surface. Then, anyone in you group can lift this first cup so that two cups can be placed under it, forming the second row of the pyramid.

From this point forward you are only allowed to lift the bottom row of your pyramid structure – the row touching the table – to add the next row underneath. All other cups in the pyramid not be grabbed and/or lifted in any way.

Again, only the bottom row of the pyramid can be lifted. If any part of your pyramid structure falls apart you must start your building process over from one cup.

The topics of this publication: interactions, strategy, collaboration, leadership, teamwork, creativity