Home Centre 2016
Home Centre 2016
December 01, 2016 at 2:01 PM
At the end of the academic year, when exams are over, the Year 10 students embark on their Field Centre adventures. For the rest of the Middle School, the students enjoy a series of rewarding activities that include physical and mental challenges, along with an element of service to others.
The Year 7 Decathlon, challenged the younger students in sports such as water relays, obstacle races, ten pin bowling, football and tee ball. They were also challenge in academic activities which included quizzes, homework and clubs. Every activity the students participated in earned points towards the top prizes.
The Year 8 Challenge Week saw the students’ mountain biking in Woodhill Forest, embarking on a treasure hunt at the Auckland Museum, learning more about World Vision and what they can do to help and participating in an all-day event, Top Town. During Home Centre, the Year 9 students gave service to local schools and rest homes, made Marvellous Machines, visited the zoo and took a trip to rainbow’s end.
One of the ongoing activities of Challenge Week is for the students to create a Cardboard City. The original idea was inspired by ‘Caine’s Arcade.’ Caine Monroy, a nine-year-old American who spent his summer vacation building an elaborate DIY cardboard game arcade inside his dad’s used auto parts store.
The students were instructed to think outside the square, to make structures and not houses, and to come up with original ideas based on the word their class had been given. These words included, arched, segmented, tall, blocks, connected, curved and stepped. From there, the Year 8 students constructed the Cardboard City from flat pieces of corrugated card, packing tape and large roll of white cotton string.
During the Year 9 Home Centre, the students experienced giving service to local, low decile primary schools, by helping paint their playground, getting involved in a garden to table programme and helping assist students with new technology. They also got stuck into gardening at local rest homes, helping to wrap Christmas presents, putting up decorations, mingling with residents and assisting to record life stories.
A new activity that had been introduced this year was Marvellous Machines. It was an integrated design challenge based on Leonardo da Vinci's machine and automata design. Students competed in their tutor groups to design and make a machine based on a selected word such as; swing, sail, vibrate and oscillate, using a box of mystery items. Prizes were awarded to each group that managed to present a finished and functioning machine that met the given specifications, alongside a scale model and branding of the machine.
Each tutor group had to work together to fulfil the requirements for each area. The areas included project management, construction and engineering, textile fabrication, 3D sculpting (digital and physical), design and visual communication and food technology. The students assigned to the kitchen were working on a slightly different project; to design and make a 'brain bar' ready for the final presentation of the finished outcomes.
Creative Director, Demelza Round said overall, students did really well. She said, ‘Some of the thinking and decision making staff saw in action was impressive, as was the combination, logical and lateral thinking demonstrated by all tutor groups. As an exercise designed to test the resilience, communication and design thinking of each tutor group it is safe to say all students should be proud of the efforts and they certainly deserve a holiday!’
