Game: Drop a hollow cylinder repeatedly; try to make it land on end, or bounce horizontally, etc.
Equipment: An “old-fashioned oatmeal” container with top and bottom cleanly removed works well as a cylinder for the game. See note 3.
Play: Hold the container at regulation height. Release it,
and note how it bounces and its terminal position. See notes 1 and 2.
Scoring: +15 points if cylinder comes to rest standing upright – that is, presenting a circular face to the ground . +2 points if cylinder bounces substantially flatly when it strikes the floor (this happens when both ends of the cylinder reach the floor at the same time). -1 point for other cases. Game ends at ±29 points or as house rules dictate. See note 4.
Note 1: For drops from overhead, holding the cylinder horizontally and releasing both ends simultaneously seems the best way to get a flat bounce. Holding one end slightly higher seems to make an upright result more likely.
Note 2: Regulation height depends on house rules: eg, as high as you can reach; forehead height; waist or knee or ankle height. On plush carpet, it's quite difficult to land the cylinder upright when dropping it from ankle height.
Note 3: In the US, a container for 1.2 kg of oatmeal is a kraft-paper or thin-cardboard cylinder of about 12 cm diameter and 24 cm height. Remove the top and bottom from an empty container without damaging the sides of the cylinder. It is also possible to cut the tops and bottoms off of beverage cans or bottles to obtain smaller cylinders for the game, or to use short pieces of tube cut from steel or plastic conduit. What's suitable depends in part on the playing floor. The oatmeal container has a nice bounce on both hard and soft surfaces.
Note 4. If multiple players are playing at the same time, players who reach -29 drop out; the winner is the first player to reach +29, or the last one to reach -29. If multiple players are playing serially (one after another) either alternate turns or count the number of turns to reach ±29 points.