Indoor Adventure: Day Four

The Indoor Adventure squad went big on our last day of adventuring! Our morning brought us to Hookset for a stop at Space Entertainment Center and a round of black light laser tag. The fast paced game took place inside a multi level neon space base where the group was split into two teams to play. After some tasty space pizza, we were off to Merrimack Valley Paintball for some outdoor excitement, just to see what we'd been missing all week. MVP did not disappoint! Again playing on two teams, the group went through rounds of Elimination, Capture the Flag, and Protect the President, to everyone's great enjoyment! Van and Neo will be writing on the Space Center experience, while JT and Matt will be giving their reviews of paintballing.

During our afternoon at Merrimack Valley Paintball, NHS shot, defended, attacked, and got shot by each other. By the end of the day, everyone had gotten a little paint on them from an exploding paintball. The Paintball place looks a little weird when you first pull in but once you meet the staff you feel like you’re right at home. We started off with a simple elimination game. Then we did capture the flag which wasn’t much different because we ended up just shooting each other instead of getting the flag. Finally we did protect the president where one team had to be body guards and transport the president across the battlefield. The other team was the assassins and they had to try to kill the president. In the end, the assassins won. - JT

 
Paintball was a thrilling and exhilarating adventure. Going into it I did not know what to expect or how much it would hurt when i was hit. To start the friendly staff got us all geared up and filled up with paint. Then we headed out to the woods. When walking in we saw a bunch of different courses. By the end of the day we played on every course. The objective of the first game we played was simply to eliminate all the players on the other team. The next game we then played on a different course and the objective was to capture a fly and bring it back to “base”. The final and in my opinion most fun game we played was called president. The other team had one person that they chose to be the “president” and they had to protect him and get him to a specific structure. The team I was on were the assassins and we had to shoot the president before he go to that point to win. Over all it was a great experience and definitely worth the money. - Matt
 

Laser Tag Arena is a new game for me and I enjoyed it after the first 5 minutes. Our group were split into two team of six and everyone were equipped with a body vest and a laser gun attached to the vest. The vest and the laser gun have tag points on it so our goal is to shoot the tag points as much as possible to score for our team, the same goes with our opponents. My favorite thing about the game is the arena itself, it's dark and glowing with red and green neon colors, the arena is two levels and full of structures and buildings for cover. Even though after 3 game our team lost, I enjoyed blasting 500 laser rounds at opponents all over the place. - Van

 

Laser tag was fun. When we arrived there, the game was not ready to go, so we experienced some other arcade games while we were waiting, like skiing, pac-man air hockey, basketball shooting, and other games. When the laser tag was ready to go, we were separated into two groups, the setting was great, white things would glow in the space. There were two ways to gain points, shooting your opponents or shooting their bases. Also, when you were shot for a certain times or you were out of armor and you had to go back to your base to reset. My team lost all three rounds of the game, because some of us did not get the trick of shooting the base. It was a good game though. At the end, everyone got a scorecard with their points and it tells them who they shot and who shot them during the game. - Neo

Overall, paintball ranked as one of the most popular games of the week, providing a great value for the cost, and a unique, exciting, experience. Everyone found it to be easy to learn how to play and use the equipment and thought it was very intense and tiring! Laser tag was rated high for fun, but did not offer much of a workout and it was a little difficult to figure out how to use the blasters. The team would recommend paintball for teenagers to adults, while laser tag would be better for younger kids.

Indoor Adventure: Day Three

The Indoor Adventure team ramped up the intensity today with trips to Evo Rock and Fitness and Velocity Cycles. After a quick introduction to the equipment and overview of the walls, we were set free on the longest continuous climbing wall in New Hampshire! The staff was on hand to help belay, as was our own JT Wheelock!

After lunch out in Concord, we were off to Rollinsford to bike ride! Velocity Cycles gave the crew an intense workout, led by our awesomely enthusiastic instructor, Lisa. The high-tech bike technology allows the rider to tilt and lean left and right, simulating the feel of a road bike ride. Anthony and Andres will be giving their reviews of our rock climbing experience and Shay and Antonia will be sharing their reflections on our visit to Velocity.

Evo Rock is an indoor rock climbing center that features huge climbing walls as well as other exercise options like yoga and weight lifting sessions. The climbing area includes a smaller section for bouldering and a larger section of rope climbing, both with many trails that vary in difficulty. The business, filled with friendly and understanding staff, ran very smoothly and efficiently.
- Anthony

The experience at the Evo Rock climbing facility this morning was wonderful. The facility has a huge amount of climbing walls for us to choose from. The staff who assisted us were friendly and helpful. I loved the positive atmosphere that our group members created this morning. For myself, I think climbing is not only fun, but also very intense. Although I had a hard time trying to conquer some walls, I made some achievements as well. I strongly recommend others try this indoor activity, because this is a good opportunity to experience 'adventure' for yourself. - Andres

 

The Indoor Adventure crew rated this the most athletically challenging day of the week so far! Both Evo and Velocity offered great workouts and fun, unique experiences. The climbing wall offered routes for all skill levels and students could easily choose the level of difficulty for each climb. So challenging, in fact, was the climbing wall, that many students needed to take breaks to rest their arms between climbs! Velocity proved the most tiring workout of the week, with nearly 45 minutes of non-stop peddling at varied speeds and resistance levels. With a fun atmosphere and great instructor, it was considered very good exercise in a well structured format.

 

 

Indoor Adventure: Day Two

The Indoor Adventure crew enjoyed an eclectic array of activities on our second day of action! In the morning, Mrs. Churchill led us through an introduction to Yoga, an experience that she eloquently described as an "inner adventure." The group was taken through a number of beginner positions and learned a bit about the benefits of Yoga for the body and mind. It was a nice balance to the high intensity afternoon that took us to Nashua for a visit to Skyventure and Surfs Up! Enda and Jake reported on our trip to Skyventure.

Skyventure was awesome! At first, I was extremely nervous to go indoor skydiving, but once I got into the tunnel all the butterflies left my body. I started off with a belly flop and immediately got pushed up by the huge fans. I was trying my best to stay calm and listen to the instructor as much as I could. We had to learn hand signals before going in because you can't hear anything while you're flying, but once I started skydiving I forgot all of them. When I got out of the tunnel I was disappointed because I didn't want it to end. Indoor skydiving was breathtaking and I recommend it to everyone!
- Enda

Indoor surfing was amazing! I didn't know what it was going to be like until I saw it first hand. It was nothing like I expected and boy was I bad at it. The instructor would hold my board and give me tips, but it seemed none of them helped for the first 10 minutes as I could only last 10 seconds max. I got sick of falling off and watching all my friends do it so well. I started to bend my knees and keep my back straight and the rest was history. I was able to stay on the board for more then a minute! Once you get it down the thrill was amazing!
- Jake
 
By the ratings, everyone thought yoga was a fun, well balanced workout. Low intensity and easy to pick up for first timers, the group all found a morning of yoga to be good exercise and a mindful experience. Reviews of Skyventure and Surfs Up highlighted the unique experience that each provide. Surfing offered a moderate workout and required some athleticism and good balance, while skydiving was a minimal workout, but took some effort to master the positioning in the tunnel. Both Skyventure and Surfs Up were considered a good deal for the excitement level, originality, and intensity of the activities!

Indoor Adventure: Day One

The students of Indoor Adventure spent the opening morning developing rating criteria for our upcoming trips around the state, and researching their various assignments to help develop short business summaries and interview questions, all for use in our creation of a compendium of adventure related indoor recreation businesses in New Hampshire. In the coming days, our travels will take us to many points around the state to rank adventurous indoor experiences. To put our ranking system to the test, we set off in the afternoon for nearby Funspot, in Laconia. Victor and Fernando were tasked with reporting on our visit.

Today, the Indoor Adventure group went to a regional arcade game place named Funspot. There were more than 600 arcade games available to have fun and spend our time with. I think that Funpot was a good place to be on a Monday. Me and my buddy Victor had so much fun racing against each other in the Daytona USA game, playing mini golf and playing the classic Mortal Kombat game. I wish that we had more time to spend there, because I was not able to play all the games that Funspot presented for me. What most impressed me at Funspot were all the old games that I saw, games that my father used to play when he was younger and now I have had the pleasure to experience what he experienced. - Fernando

Today, during the first day of project week, our Indoor Adventure group went to Funspot. It is considered the biggest arcade in the world, and as you can imagine, there were hundreds of games and activities in it. As soon as we got there, we received our "Tokens" (the coin used on the machines) and started to play. Personally, I had a lot of fun playing the Mini Golf as well as Air Hockey. I am sure the rest of the group also had fun. Some of them actually got really big scores on some of the games. I interviewed some staff members about the place and learned that there are around 600 games and activities, and an impressive number of around 2000 to 3000 visitors per day at the busy times of the year. It was a really good experience getting to know Funspot, especially with the Indoor Adventure group! - Victor

In rating the Funspot experience, the team ranked it appropriately high in fun for your money, but aside from the wacky gator and whack-a-mole, it was given predictably low scores for excercise quality and intensity. Most agreed though that Funspot had lots to offer and an impressive array of options and was an entertaining, family friendly environment. Particularly popular were the classic Bubble Hockey, the coin wheel, drop, and flip, and the whack-a-games.

Indoor Adventure Essential Question

Students in this project will design a compendium of indoor adventure related activities from around New Hampshire through discovery and discussion at various locations throughout the state.