Each year, the Zoology Department of the University of Otago organizes an Orientation event for its Postgraduate students. This is a perfect opportunity for students to get to know each other and Zoology staff in an informal way. This year, the Orientation event was held at the Unipol Recreation Center. After some introductory words from Mark (Head of Department), we had some vegetarian pizza. Soon after, Paul provided information about the rules of foosball and led us through a foosball quiz. The quiz was won by Finn, who can now choose one t-shirt for free from a range of different Zoology t-shirts.

We then started with the actual highlight of the Orientation event – the MonsterDYP foosball tournament. Well prepared due to the quiz, students and staff got excited to have a go at foosball. Each round, the partners and teams were drawn randomly by the Kickertool software. In total, 25 students and staff played a decent number of games on five Leonhard tables. After about two hours and a thrilling last game amongst players from the top of the ranking, the first three winners each received a reptile or marine science book.

According to the excited screams and cheering during the tournament, the students must have had a lot of fun. We hope to see some of them again at our weekly foosball practice and free play that happens each Friday night from 5.30 pm at the entrance area of the Unipol Recreation Center of the University of Otago.

This week Wednesday was a very special day. Why? Because there were 52 pupils from four Otago High Schools which all had a go at Foosball. The tournament was run in collaboration with the Otago Secondary Schools Sports Associations and members of Foosball Dunedin and held at the Unipol in Dunedin.

MonsterDYP was the style of the tournament. The Monster part of the name refers to the fact that the tournament could potentially last infinitely long (there is no predefined number of games and can be finished any time). And the DYP part of the name stands for ‘Draw Your Partner’ meaning that during the tournament, the teammate and the opponents are randomly assigned for each game.

After a short introduction into the rules of Foosball finishing with a small quiz, the pupils started with a practice tournament to get used to the rules, the scoring and the tournament style. After a bit of a chaotic start with delays in kick offs due to missing players, the children more and more self-organized and notified their classmates if they forgot that it’s their turn to play. We used the tournament software Kickertool for random team assignments and tracking of the points for each individual pupil. The current team pairings and the current player rankings were projected onto a screen and soon the kids checked regularly on their current ranks.

After the lunch break, the real tournament started and all points were reset to zero. Now the children took the games a bit more serious than during the practice tournament because there was the possibility to win a foosball tables for their school. After in total 182 foosball games, the winners were determined. The three Leonhart tournament foosball table will go to the Bayfield High School, Logan Park High School and the Kaikorai Valley College.

We are looking forward to running similar tournaments for our community again!