TUG of war

Moving on from arm wrestling the students measure their max pulling force.
I usually hold one end of the ergometer and the students pull (steadily) the other, the whole class is done...you can have great fun here.
(no snatching as it is not fair)
2 goes each and the best force is recorded.

You do need a tug of war rope, but it is worth it's weight in gold.

Students predict who will win and hopefully see it is not the number of people that counts but the total force

1 vs 1, 2 vs 1, in some cases if the totals are closely balanced 3 vs 1 and it WORKS

ultimately the students predict a well balanced war using the whole class (FORCES not number of people is key)

students can draw and cut out people write names and forces on them and a poster (with a long piece of string) can be produced to show the 2 teams