RHA and SAB Host Annual Battle of the Buildings
This past weekend the Residence Hall Association (RHA) teamed up with the Student Activities Board (SAB) to host the annual Battle of the Buildings.
Each year all the students of their respective buildings on campus come together to compete in a series of events to determine which one is the best. This year Battle of the Buildings was a three day occurrence starting on Friday September 14 and ending on Sunday September 16.
Mullaney Hall, a first year building, took first place with a total of 860 points. Following them was Willow with 845 points. The on-campus apartments took third place along with Elmwood totaling 740 points.
The weekend kicked off Friday night at the Dining Hall with the Spirit Dinner and the Wing Bowl. The Spirit Dinner was simple; whichever building had the best turnout between the hours of 5:00 pm and 7:00 pm won. Mullaney Hall won the Spirit Dinner. Following the dinner was the wing eating contest known as the Wing Bowl.
Each contestant had their own personal judge, one for each building. Megan Pereira, junior and resident assistant at Pinewood Hall, was a judge for the Wing Bowl that Friday night.
“As a judge I had to make sure that they got all the meat off their wings and yell when my person finished their bowl,” she explained. “It was a lot of fun and really exciting to cheer on Pinewood because I am really competitive.”
Houseless Not Hopeless, which also took place on Friday night, is a new event that was added to Battle of the Buildings this year and also. It is an event where students sleep outside in cardboard boxes all night to raise awareness for hunger and homelessness. Samantha Palmucci, senior and Resident Assistant in Mullaney Hall, explained in further detail what Houseless Not Hopeless consists of.
“It is run by the First Year Service Project,” she began. “Usually it takes place in November, but to get more participation, RHA decided to make it part of the overall Battle of the Buildings event.” Houseless Not Hopeless had a series of events, one being the peanut butter and jelly relay. All of the sandwiches made were donated to local food banks. There was blanket making, as well as sculpture building out of donated food items, which were then also donated.
Rosie Wandel, a residence assistant in Maplewood, said, “I think it’s great that they make some of their events for charity,” she said. “They have done the event [Homeless Not Helpless] before but not for Battle of the Buildings, I think it’s great they decided to combine the two.”
Saturday consisted of two major events, laser tag and human battleship.
Alissa Catalano is the Vice President of Programming and Special Events for RHA. The laser tag event was done by SAB who teamed up with RHA and counted participation in the event as spirit points for Battle of the Buildings, explained Catalano. She said, “Overall, I thought the laser tag event went really well. It’s pretty cool that we cold host an event like laser tag right on our own quad.”
Willow Hall had the most students come out for the event. Student participation was calculated by taking the attendance per building and the occupancy number in the building and dividing it by the number of students who showed up in order to get an average, expalined Catalano.
Palmucci said, “There was a huge turnout for this [laser tag], although I am not sure of specific numbers, I think it was one of the most successful events of the entire weekend.”
The University used Combat Sports Outdoor Laser Tag, based out of Manalapan, N.J. The crew set up a variety of blow up cabins in the quad, along with blow up walls and canvas houses that were staked into the ground. After signing a waiver, students who wished to play were set up with a laser gun and a camouflage ban- dana for their head which had two beacons for the opposing team to aim at.
Juniors Ray Bogan, Michael Moore, Joe Boyle, Mike Udayakumar and Taylor Copp put a team together and said this was by far their favorite event of the weekend.
“This is war, this is real life,” said Moore jokingly, followed by Bogan claiming, “This is what separates the men from the boys.”
Catalano’s favorite event of the weekend was Human Battleship.
Each team is consists of five students, four players and one team captain. There are 12 chairs set up on each side of the volleyball court. When it is a team’s turn, the four players sit in any of the chairs labeled A-D, 1-3 (in a grid) and the captain sits blindfolded, facing away from the volleyball court. Each captain gets a turn to try and ‘sink’ the other players. If the captain guesses right, the player in the seat gets water dumped on his or her head. If the captain is wrong, he or she gets water dumped on her head. The object of the game is to ‘sink’ all of the players first, just like actual battleship, expalined Catalano.
“It was really fun watching the teams play and was even more fun being the one to dump the water on the participants heads,” Catalano said. “Overall, I had an amazing time planning the event and even better times seeing it all come to life. It was such a great weekend.”
Sunday had eight events spread throughout the day. There was the traditional giant blow up obstacle course, a pie eating contest, a hula hoop contest, a volleyball tournament which took place outside Elmwood, cornhole, water balloon toss, relay races and tug of war.
The tug of war seemed to be a favorite amongst the students and invoked some serious competition between buildings.
Palmucci said, “I definitely think tug of war elicits some smack talk and high energy, but sportsmanship was evident all around. It was so great to see all the buildings on campus coming together and congratulating each other on their wins.”
Jessica Calabro is the RHA Public Relations Coordinator and is currently in her first year at the position. “My favorite Battle of the Buildings event was tug of war because every building that was represented was excited and passionate about winning this competition,” Calabro said. “I would encourage students to attend events like Battle of the Buildings because it is a great way to get involved on campus and meet new people.”
PHOTO COURTESY of Blaze Nowara
