For about a decade our 'Segway Challenge' activity was King of corporate event activities in the Greater Auckland region (and beyond).
In 2003 Philip Bendall "invented" a team-building activity he called 'The Segway Challenge'. It was specially designed so it could be tailored and scaled for groups ranging from six to sixty people.
The Segway Challenge offered half an hour's worth of engaging, exciting and entertaining activity for smaller groups, through to at least an hour's activity for larger groups. It was the perfect corporate 'break-out' or team-building activity because it could be set up and run just about anywhere: indoors in a large room, in a parking building, on a sports field, at a local park or reserve, or even on the beach.
In its simplest form, the first portion of The Segway Challenge was a 10 minute introduction to the concept of a self-balancing 'Human Transporter' - at the time few had seen and fewer still had ridden such a machine. In addition to demonstrating the capabilities of the device there was discussion of the genesis, technologies and applications. Questions from the group were encouraged, and this portion could be kept as simple or become as technical as the group wanted (as Philip held an Engineering Degree in Mechatronics).
The second portion gave everyone their first-ever ride on a Segway PT. We divided the group into teams of 4 to 8, and utilised a learn-by-doing approach. We taught one person in each team how to ride, then their task was to teach their next team member. Next, this freshly-taught 2nd person taught the 3rd, and so on.....hey, what could go wrong? We stood (closely) by and encourage and intervened as necessary. This approach built trust between team members, and incorporated many standard team-building techniques into a unique context. This portion would also result in a lot of laughs and giggles, and often generate material for running gags throughout the remainder of the event.
The third portion set the teams challenging each other to complete parallel relay races on Segway PTs, up and down slalom courses, avoiding obstacles along the way. Again, what could go wrong?
Whilst surprising to some people, not much ever went wrong. This is a testament to how quickly a person can learn to safely and accurately operate a Segway PT, and then rapidly hone these skills with just a little practice.
Typically, the teams would play three 'rounds' of challenges (maybe four, if time permitted). With each round the course and the activities would become more and more difficult. We used upturned plastic cups as the 'cones' (or markers) to ride around and avoid...as these made a satisfying "crunch" whenever they were run over. Each squashed cone earned the team a 10 second penalty added to their team's total finishing time.
The secret sauce of The Segway Challenge was how we'd cleverly and carefully scale the difficulty of the course so it was possible for a rider of any confidence level to complete, yet surprisingly challenging to riders who attempted it with a more gung-ho attitude. A typical event would consist of three or four rounds - with more than that we'd run into a situation where an over-excited and adrenalised rider's confidence began to exceed their ability!
After a winning team was found, a fourth period of free riding was allowed if the environment permitted.
Within a year or two, our specific Segway Challenge concept was being utilised by Segway businesses around the world. It was possible to run this event very efficiently with regards to time/duration, minimal set-up/break-down, and to be able to utilise just about any available space with regards to size and layout, as long as it was reasonably flat. One of our favourite parts of the activity was generating names for the teams. Instead of asking teams to pick their own name, we had them huddle together out of ear-shot of each other, and get them to pick a name for the other team (or one of the other teams, if more than two). This often produced hilarious results.
We ran The Segway Challenge all over the place, on hundreds and hundreds of occasions. Auckland, Whangarei, Waitangi, Hamilton, Tauranga, Rotorua, Taupo, Queenstown... Additionally, many of the Segway Tours around New Zealand also offered versions of The Segway Challenge in their regions.
Because our activity was scaleable, we'd often be invited to be one of half-a-dozen or so short activities at large corporate days. Other activities included archery, laser clay pigeon shooting, go karts, etc.
As the first decade of the 21st Century progressed, we created and added a number of additional activities carefully crafted for corporate groups, including:
• Segway Corporate Polo using full-sized Segway PTs, usually on an outdoor field.
We began the activity with the Segway Challenge as the first part of rider training, and then play several rounds of Segway PT Polo using a subset of the official International Segway Polo rules that Philip Bendall contributed towards in 2005.
Whilst the The Segway Challenge worked well with groups of novices, and was engineered so that natural sportspersons didn't necessarily have a natural advantage, this was not the case with Segway Polo. The main difficulty when playing this game with corporate groups arose when a player's enthusiasm and confidence quickly exceeded their ability to ride and swing a mallet.
Auckland technology pioneer Steve Simms and Philip made Segway Polo the first new internationally played sport of the new millennium when they challenged the only other two Segway Polo teams in the world, both based in Silicon Valley, USA, to the world's first international match in Auckland (February 2006).
The US sent a combined team called Aftershocks, featuring Apple co-founder Steve 'Woz' Wozniack in their team, amongst others.
The NZ team was called The Pole Blacks, and Philip was captain from 2005 to 2009. The photo below features our 2007 team during our visit San Francisco, and Steve Wozniack.
Left to right: Peter Griffen (technology writer), Seeby Woodhouse (Orcon), Andrew Somervell, Woz, Rod Drury (Xero), Steve Simms, and Philip Bendall (Captain).
Segway PT Polo has continued to grown and flourish since 2005. European teams soon formed, and intense competitions played out each year over the next decade or so. The first match was played in New Zealand, the second in San Francisco, the third also in the US, the fourth and fifth in Barbados...until the annual competition for the Woz Challenge Cup settled into being played in various countries in the EU each year. The rules permit the winning team to host the next match in the country of their choice (typically, they choose their homeland). German and Swedish teams were particularly skilled players, until the Covid-19 Pandemic brought a halt to the event for a few years.
The Woz Challenge Cup world championship begins again in July 2023, with 12 teams meeting up to play in Cologne, Germany.
A couple of "big kids" from New Zealand sure kicked off something special back in 2005 by creating the first international Segway PT Polo competition and it has grown to be a worldwide success.
• Segway Corporate mini-Polo using a fleet of Segway miniPro's on an indoor court was developed in 2016.
This game was more gentle and controlled than its big brother, and allowed pretty much anyone to have a good time. You can read more about both versions of Segway Polo here.
• Segway Corporate Golf Days where participants would get use a Segway GT or Segway x2 Golf model to get between hole. Other times we'd add a quick Segway Challenge at one of the holes. And sometimes we'd just dress up as giant lemons and serve gin & tonic, or be sponsored by Savanna Cider to promote their brand.
• Segway Nerf Gun Challenge (sometimes known as "Shoot the Boss" but you can't do that sort of thing anymore).
Armed with Nerf Guns, riders had to navigate an obstacle course then launch a volley at a target as accurately as they could, before zooming back so their next team member could have a go. The target may or may not have been a big poster of their boss. When playing the scene looks a bit like this...
Well, not really. And instead of using a photo of the boss, mostly we set out blankets on the ground as the target, with the challenge being to land as many Nerf darts onto the blanket from a certain distance away as possible. Yes, of course we instructed participants the concept was not to shoot their Nerf Guns at each other.
The Nerf Gun concept lead to interest from AirSoft enthusiasts. Here's a photo of a weaponised Segway x2 set up to play in an AirSoft game in Tauranga. Rapid fire air-soft "machine guns" were mounted on the fenders, while and the rider was protected from enemy fire by shielding attached to a Segway x2 Patroller model.
• Segway Jousting
Just joking, we never did this. Much.
• Segway 'Pie in the Face'
Kinda like jousting, only more playful. The idea is to throw a big, full-fat cream pie while riding a Segway PT. Each rider carries their freshly made cream pie in one hand to throw at a target as they whiz past. But timing is of the essence, so it is a careful weighing up of speed vs accuracy. It is not as easy as it sounds to keep that pie in hand....and watch out for blow-back when you throw!
