Haepapa, Tautoko and The Navigator Centre

A Busy Wednesday

Today the Haepapa and Tautoko students were really challenged in their personal and time management as we worked super hard to get our Teach-a-Skill projects ready to present next week.  You may find over the next few days that your child asks to 'teach' you their skill in preparation for teaching their small group next Wednesday.  This is to be encouraged if you can make the time!

These groups also practiced their delivery skills, reading about "The Attack of the Vegetables" and buying elephants at the supermarket!

Epro8 Challenge

Then it was time for the Year 7/8 Epro8 students to meet and debrief about their competition success last week.  A number of strengths were identified, but weaknesses were also spotted.

(Epro8 Challenge students - Absent Forbes Kennedy and Johanna Halcox)

How did you decided what to do?  Did you do it well?

Noah: We wasted 10 minutes on the (animatronic) dog but it was harder than we realised.  

Axis: We choose what was easiest for the most points and what we could add to

Indi: We had good communication

Axis: On the balloon one we had too many cords and didn’t know what connected to which

Flynn: I made a sword!

What can you work on?

Indi: Being more focussed.

Axis: Make sure when you are done with something you pack it up.

Ayden: By using the strong structure we could have had something to use as a base for the other challenges.

Where to next:

Figure - it - outers

Choose the right path - choose the one that will give you the strong structure for building everything else on.  Choose the challenge that can make you go the furthest.

Slingshots

Read the instructions so you don’t mess up your challenge and you know what to do.

Kahurangi Pod

A Good Delivery

Today the Kahurangi GATE students learned about the crucial points of 'a good delivery' in preparation for sharing their skills with us next week.

Pitch, pause, emphasis, tone articulation, pace and volume are all key to a great spoken delivery, so, we used nonsense poems to practice.  Here are the students reading stanza's from Jabberwocky and The Whango Tree.

Epro8 Challenge Year 5-8

Epro8 Challenge Success!

Over the last two days (March 22/23) we have had four teams competing in the Palmerston North heat of the Epro8 Challenge.  This is a national competition that stands for Engineer, Problem Solve, Innovate.  (http://epro8challenge.co.nz/)

The Year 7 / 8 competition was on Wednesday evening.  Teams had to work together to solve a variety of challenges including building an animatronic guard dog, devising a positional laser, building a bridge and creating a fairground balloon ride.

The Whakarongo Slingshots  (Axis Simon, Indiana Brown, Flynn Harris and Emma Mildenhall) achieved 4th place and the Whakarongo Figure-it-Outers  (Ayden Armstrong, Noah McCallum, Johanna Halcox and Forbes Kennedy) gained 2nd place!  Both these teams will continue to the semifinals early next term.

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The Year 5 / 6 event was held this morning (Wednesday).  Our two teams tackled the same challenges as the older students and both teams made a great showing.  The Whakarongo Brainboxes earned a 7th equal placing and the Whakarongo Technology Terrors will also progress to the semifinals with their impressive 3rd place.

 

A huge congratulations to all our competing students.  Your teamwork and commitment to each other was fantastic - I'm really proud of you all.

Thanks also to those families who were able to come and support us at the two events, and to all of you for the conversations and preparations many of you undertook at home.

Navigator Centre/Kahurangi/Haepapa/Tautoko

A Very Busy Day!

The 'Whakarongo Figure-it-outers' and the 'Whakarongo Slingshots' tried their hand with the Brainbox electronics kits today.  They created alarms, music boxes and even an fm radio.   The teams are feeling good and are excited about competing next week at the Epro8 Challenge at Monrad Intermediate.

Quote of the Day:  "A Capacitor is for storing energy - it is like a bucket of water with a hole in it.  You can use it to store up energy and it will hold it for a little bit longer after you turn (the switch) off."  - Flynn

The Haepapa and Tautoko students met with me to begin their Teach-a-skill project.  We looked at some successful tutorials to get an idea of what we would like to produce as good communicators.  Here are the students thinking hard about the goals they wish to set themselves!

Mason knew that good communicators need fluency and expression!

Wairangi spotted that our Youtube tutors were enthusiastic and knew what they were talking about.  They were confident in their material.

And then, our hard working Epro8 teams from Kahurangi, gave up their lunchtime to explore pulleys and gears - STEM is well underway for the year!

Epro8 Electronics

Electronics Exploration!

Today, our two year 5/6 teams from Kahurangi pod - the 'Whakarongo Technology Terrors' and the 'Whakarongo Brainboxes', explored our new school "Brainbox" kits.  These fantastic kits allowed the students to work with sophisticated components, using a simple doming system that allows them to explore.

The teams were able to follow circuit diagrams to create switch and magnetically activated lights, create alarms, music boxes and simple motorised fans.  While the equipment the teams will work with in the Epro8 Challenge is purpose designed, today allowed the students to investigate the materials they would need to complete similar projects at next weeks competition.