A couple weeks ago Andrew Brassard shared a prop idea that he made. Essentially, it is a maze that firefighters have to maneuver so a ball gets from the starting point to the end. Brass made his out of steel and Grant Light put one together with wood. I took the opportunity to put hand tools, a torch, and a welder in the hands of some firefighters.

The prop didn’t take long to make and was cheap to build since we used scrap steel.

Here are the rules I gave to the crews:

• Use every lifting tool on your engine at least once. For us it included: pry bars, wedges, high-lift jack, bottle jack, airbags, spreaders, portapower.
• No touching the prop with your hands
• No banging the prop with a tool to get the ball to move
• No blowing on the ball to get it to move (late rule add, but firefighters are innovative)
• If you lift an inch, you crib an inch

The crews have been working around 40 minutes to move the ball through the maze. Some of the observations and teaching points from the training include:

• Communications between the crew is essential. Sometimes two lifts at nearly simultaneous times were needed to prevent the ball from becoming trapped.
• Teamwork is important.
• The boss needs to have a vision for where the ball needs to go. Multiple ideas may work, but which one is fastest and safest?
• Understand where your equipment is located on the rig and how it works. The spreaders may be fast, but the portapower or bottle jack may be better for precision lifts.