Inter-Activities: Turing's Tower

Around two years ago, a small group of active members came up with the idea to create an event based on Takeshi’s Castle, a Japanese show that originally aired on the Tokyo Broadcasting System (TBS) from 1986-1990. The show featured a count named Takeshi who owned a castle and set up difficult physical challenges for players to get to him. The most famous of which was a maze in which Takeshi’s henchmen hunted down the players dressed in scary costumes. Despite the show ending many years ago, its cultural impact can still be felt today. The show has many international adaptations and reruns of the original are still on the air in some countries. Its format has also inspired many other famous shows, such as American Ninja Warrior and Wipeout.

Of course, it was impossible to do everything Takeshi’s Castle did, as the show had a very large budget and absolutely no regard for human safety. Contestants were often physically hurt in the challenges, much to the amusement of count Takeshi. So, a few adjustments had to be made in order to have a similar event here on campus. Working out which challenges were possible and which were not was a large part of the committee’s job, the challenges in the event were all based on challenges seen in the show, but only ones deemed safe enough for contestants. Another big part of adapting the show was picking a name for the event. The committee eventually decided to go with Turing’s Tower, based on the famous mathematician Alan Turing.

On June 3rd, the day of the event, people dressed in all sorts of strange outfits were lining up in the burning heat at the Kampeerveld to face six challenges. After a quick warm up by the committeee, dressed in kimonos and sweatbands, the participants were off! The first challenge they had to face was called “Skittles”, a game where participants acted as living bowling pins that could be struck down by a giant inflatable ball that was thrown off of an inflatable hill. If they survived, they could go on to “Blueberry hill”: a red light/green light or “annamaria koekkoek” like game where they had to walk over a slip-and-slide and if they moved at the red light got shot at with paintballs. After this was “Pie or die”, a game of chance where you might get a pie thrown in your face. Followed quickly by the star of the show: the “Square maze”! Much like in the original Takeshi’s castle there was an actual maze with people in costumes hunting the participants that were trying to make it to the other side. After this the participants had to put on horse costumes and skate to the other side of a street in “Rollerderby run” and finally in “On your bike” they had to ride mini bikes and play a game of Tug of war with an object they could not see, ranging from a teddy bear to an actual truck.

The ten participants that survived all six of these challenges moved on to the final, each of them got a target strapped to their chest and two large skelters rolled up to the Hogekampplein. These skelters could seat 10 people each, and the surviving participants had to face off in an epic water gun fight against the committee! In the end, after a long fight which may or may not have almost wrecked one of the skelters, the participants defeated the committee and the battle was finally over.

Interested?

Check out pictures taken of the event at the Inter-Actief website! There were also video recordings made of the event which will be turned into an epic episode of Turing’s Tower!