Category Archives: Innovation & Enterprise

After semester 1 where we created our business Pen & paper we felt as if we had more to us so we went to something completely different and went to candles. Yes, that’s right we created a new business called SoyNatural Candles, but they weren’t any ordinary ones otherwise how would we be able to sell them ours were infused with natural plants and herbs that came out of our back garden and were made with soy wax meaning that it’s better for the environment. We chose to make candles because there was currently a big demand for them at the time and we also wanted to try new things.

Some challenges that our group faced during the process of this include finding decent priced soy wax as we didn’t want to harm the environment by using paraffin wax as well as finding a way to make them unique. We also had to do all of our production at someone’s house as we were required to melt the wax in a saucepan and keep the herbs and plants fresh when we put them in there. After our first market we found out something that had been happening to our candles. They were going mouldy because the plants had lots of air but this was easily solved by just covering the plants in the wax meaning that the plants wouldn’t have any air so that they’d mould.

During the production of our candles we would meet up every fortnight after school to produce our candles as we had 2 markets in that term and had to complete lots of pre-orders. Luckily we were able to produce them in bulks as we’d fill up the saucepan about halfway and 1 person would keep an eye on it while stirring while the other 2 would put the plants/herbs and wick inside of the jar meaning that we’d be able to produce them quite fast as we could allow the wax to dry overnight.

Some improvements and additions that we’d made to our candles include adding more plants and herbs as well as new sizes. We’d originally only had 1 size candle which was 150ml which would be infused with either flower petals or rosemary. After the first market we then added a new size which was 300ml and add new plants and herbs which were holy basil, lavender and some cute pink flowers. We’d constantly post on our social media page taking aesthetic pictures trying to get the word out of our business.

Altogether our business was quite successful and we were able to make $50 profit each.

For semester 1 I had decided to do $20 Boss where we were required to start our own business and sell our products in a market during week 9. This was similar to the Christmas market but also had its differences because we were able to relate it since we had to create our own product I’d joined a group where we were all very creative and would take leadership but little did we know that our ideas would clash. After brainstorming many different ideas we’d made our final decision to make customised notebooks. We’d decided to make customised notebooks because we can all agree that notebooks can sometimes be utterly boring and writing is a skill that has been lost over time. Writing can help many things including mental wellbeing as it can be used to write down your emotions and feelings or could simply just be to draw or write in some schoolwork. This is why we decided to get some potential design covers and choose what cover they personally wanted. We thought that with all our skills we’d be able to easily accomplish it but it was a lot more challenging than expected with a lot of steps. We’d started off by doing a design sprint challenge where we had to explore different ideas to solve a problem within the world.

The capability that was most useful for us was creativity and there were also many others to improve on include organisation like who was going to do what in terms of production as 2 of the group members did most of the production and also a thorough timeline and actually trying to achieve our goals. We also could have used effective communication as we didn’t make it clear if we were going to meet up or collect materials and who was going to do what in terms of production and advertising.

On the 16th of June, we were all ready for the market although we were only taking pre-orders we had a prototype for our customers to have a look at. The market went successful and managed to make a $20 profit.

In this project, I have grown by learning to work with some different people to what I usually do and I have also learnt that every idea won’t always work which is why we continue ideating to make our idea even better than it was. If I were to do this project again I’d focus a bit more on time management and figure out how long it would take us to make the notebooks. Even though it didn’t go as well as we were hoping to this was an amazing learning experience for all of us.

Project Utopia has taught me many new and exciting concepts about how I can incorporate my learning in different subjects that include English, HASS, InnovatED and Science. The purpose of Project Utopia was to design our own community which also included lots of many other steps.

Reading The Giver was the beginning of the journey where I would learn about the concepts of a ‘perfect world’. Some of the ideas of a Utopia in The Giver included no cars and walking or having a bicycle, everyone doing a certain amount of service time to help out with different jobs which the Elders (Committee) choose depending on who suits the job the best. In my community one of the ideas that I included was not using cars and walking or cycling.

In Sustainability I learnt about how to reduce water and energy usage through behaviours and features by designing and building a sustainable house. Some of the water saving behaviours included two-minute showers, watering the garden in the early morning or evening and turning off the tap while you are brushing your teeth. Some of the water saving features of a sustainable house were a rainwater tank and low flush toilet. The energy saving behaviours included turning off lights when not needed or if the room’s not in use and only turning on the dishwasher when it is full. The energy saving features are insulating water pipes, solar panels, insulated walls and roof and LED lights. These initiatives will help the world in different ways like making sure that countries do not have a shortage of water, reducing use of fossil fuels and production of greenhouse gases.

In my Utopia I included these sustainability features by putting solar panels on top of all buildings and having rainwater tanks around the community.

Sustainability also led to consideration of the environmental quality of my Utopia. This included where various services were located leading me to think of liveability factors such as building a community as it would influence the friendships and quality of life within my Utopia. The subjective factors would attract people into the community depending on their likes and dislikes. These liveability factors would help me to decide what buildings I would want to include in my Utopia.

In preparation for making my community I designed an overall plan. To me, the main thing that I had focused on was environmental quality as it affects the climate and the way that people live. I made provision for renewable energy and lots of green space for residents to enjoy.

A big part of my Utopia was the UN Global Goals. These are Sustainable Development Goals many countries wish to achieve by 2030. Most of them are focused on the environment and basic everyday needs. After prioritising the seventeen Global Goals, I could seek accreditations in some of the areas that were of most importance to members of my group. The accreditations gained were No Poverty and Affordable and Clean Energy.

I achieved the goal No Poverty by providing financial support such as having affordable babysitting and childcare centres to help support families and having a homeless shelter for people who don’t have access to everyday needs such as food, water and shelter. The other accreditation was Affordable and Clean Energy which was achieved by having solar and wind energy within the community.

While doing Utopia I had to use nearly all the College Capabilities such as problem solving by figuring out how I could provide solutions for the Global Goals like No Poverty and Affordable and Clean energy, collaborate by working together effectively in a group and effective communication by sharing ideas and helping each other. There were also lots of other capabilities that I used like creativity when considering how to make my community unique and being organised which helped to decide what would be the focus and priorities each week. The College Capabilities have helped me to work stronger and more productively as part of a team.

Project Utopia has been a challenging and amazing learning experience which has improved and taught me many new skills, as well as helping me to gain experience of the issues involved in planning modern communities.