The Public Administration and Legal Studies Society hosted their fourth annual Zombie Pandemic Challenge on last Friday. Students raced through the darkened campus, completing missions while dodging the hordes of ravenous \u201czombies\u201d hunting them.<\/p>\n

Prior to the event, the organisers were\u00a0concerned that the weather\u00a0was going to be postpone or even cancel it. Fortunately, the sky cleared up before the event was set\u00a0to start and, with the determined efforts of the PALS society and volunteers, it went off without a hitch.<\/p>\n

This year, 15 teams participated in the competition.<\/p>\n

The challenge is designed to test not only their athleticism\u00a0and their skills in\u00a0planning, quick thinking and teamwork. They sprinted to the scattered stations to complete as many missions as they could in the time limit.<\/p>\n

Missions included\u00a0the zombie version of “pin the tail on the donkey,” mixing food colouring and digging in a mystery box among others.<\/p>\n

Each mission required a certain number of members. Only one mission could be done at a time. Teams spent most of their time running back and forth from the safe zone to report and regroup.<\/p>\n

Each competitor had\u00a0five strips of caution tape–serving as flags–that the zombies would try to steal. According to the game rules, losing all five strips would lead to their elimination. Individual zombies could only take one flag at a time. Hordes had no such restriction placed on them.<\/p>\n

Due to the physical nature of the challenge, safety was an important concern. The rules discouraged roughhousing and prohibited violence. Referees and facilitators made sure no foul play or injuries occurred.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, some students’ \u00a0enthusiasm got the better of them and that lead to some problems. Some competitors abused the safety zones, while some zombies didn’t follow the one flag limit. Both sides had cases of \u00a0unnecessary roughness.<\/p>\n

PALS Society confronted the individuals responsible, but only after the incidents had occurred.<\/p>\n

“Even though I had fun tonight, hearing about these problems bothered me,” one of the participants said. “Even though I only heard about it, it made me think that the challenge looked disorganized.”<\/p>\n

However, that same enthusiasm led to a fierce competition. This year had a six-way tie for the last two spots in the top five after the first phase. Unfortunately, only five could advance, so there was a bonus challenge to determine who was moving on.<\/p>\n

When asked for advice for next year’s challenge, a member of one of those six teams, J. Thomas Jackson said, “Just run a lot.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Public Administration and Legal Studies Society hosted their fourth annual Zombie Pandemic Challenge on last Friday. Students raced through the darkened campus, completing missions while dodging the hordes of ravenous \u201czombies\u201d hunting them. Prior to the event, the organisers were\u00a0concerned that the weather\u00a0was going to be postpone or even cancel it. Fortunately, the sky … <\/p>\n

Read more “PALS Society 4th annual Zombie Pandemic Challenge gets students excited for Halloween”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":73,"featured_media":25,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,1],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[303],"yoast_head":"\n