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Year 10 Muir Camp.

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summary: The program included snorkelling, archery, orienteering, and a camping trip to Rottnest Island. My aims for this elective were to participate in events outside of my comfort zone and choose a course that required more physical activity and hands-on learning.

ORIENTEERING- effective communication/ collaboration : orienteering is the sport of effective communication and working together as a team to get from point A to B with the fastest time. This course was the first time I had ever tried orienteering, I had always had low expectations for it and thought I wouldn’t enjoy the sport as much at the start, but as the lessons went on my opinions changed. During the orienteering program, we started of small and went around the school using our newly learnt skills with a compass. After a few more lessons we started heading up to the local park. When we started at the park, we soon realised there is was way more ground to cover and also the location was foreign to us. This is when my group began realising the importance of having effective communication and collaborating better. We effectively communicated and collaborated on ideas to make us as a team more efficient and fast. We decided to split up into a pair and single, we sent of the single with the map and compass while the duo memorised certain areas and went to search for the numbers/letters, after we would meet up at the decided location and repeat the process all over again. Doing this really benefited our group because we soon became faster and more accurate as a group. In the end this really increased my communication skills and ability to collaborate ideas with my peers better. Overall this part of the program really opened my eyes to orienteering and made me appreciate the sport much more.

ARCHERY- effective communication: Archery was one of the things on the program which I was really excited for, I had already had some previous experience on archery but never focused on it much like we did during Muir. We had this lady named Mary from Archery2u come in and help us. During our first lesson I underestimated the difficulty of archery and thought I could easily get a bullseye. I soon realised I could not and also that it was very easy to hurt your forearm. As the lessons went on I gradually got better since I effectively communicated with Mary when I needed help/ tips to make my precision better. I ended up enjoying it very much and got 3 bullseyes by the end of the program. Towards the end we did cloud shooting, which was way harder than normal Archery, we had to blindly aim up into the sky and shoot, I did not excel in cloud shooting. Overall my experience with Archery was very fun and id love to do it again!

SNORKLLING- Resilience: Snorkelling was the main reason why I picked this program, I always enjoyed going to the beach and swimming, when I learnt that we were going to snorkel at Coogee and Rottnest I was ecstatic. I just had one thing that held me back from entering the water and swimming with my fullest abilities. It was my irrational fear of seaweed or pretty much anything in the water besides sand. We first began learning how to use our snorkel in our school pool and slowly progressed to swimming in Coogee. Coogee was my first time snorkelling in proper conditions outside of our school pool. The weather was quite bad and dark for our three swims, I remember when we had to swim over the shipwreck I was internally screaming since all I saw was masses of black under my feet. I had to show resilience and pull through and swim over, also since I knew I had more to overcome at Rottnest. The day of snorkelling at Rottnest came we were sent to Little Parakeet bay, it was quite hot and sunny which i was happy about and the water was cool and calm. Getting into the water I was excited and ready to explore, but i finally saw all the coral and seaweed and wanted to get out as soon as possible. I pulled through and forced myself to swim forward, there were times were I had to swim through tight corners or coral that would touch me, without fail I screamed every time and swallowed huge amounts of water. Soon after I was with my buddy Joy and we were both just floating together and admiring the seaweed, while looking I realised how pretty it actually was and that it wont do anything to me, also since it was pretty deep down. After this we got out and got ready for our second snorkel session. The second one was my favourite, I really took time to admire the sea life around me and look at the coral. It was really fun, Joy and I would communicate with out hands indicating to each other if we saw a small fish or a large one. The next day was sadly the worst, I was really looking forward to swimming at the Basin, but my fear of coral and seaweed had come back when a massive wave took me over and scraped me over coral, it was a long and hard swim, I tried to admire the sea life in the moment which I did. The swim back really made me tired and I constantly felt like giving up, but I knew I had to try my best and finish it. In the end I did and joy and I sat in the shallow bits of the pool and ate candy. Overall even with some bas experiences I really did enjoy snorkelling, it made me see the ocean in a new different perspective.

CAMP- Camp started of with a 3km walk, which was enjoyable with my friends. We walked to Little Parakeet bay and snorkelled there, which was quite enjoyable. After our first session my friends and I climbed some rocks and ate our lunch enjoying the view of the Bay. We went back in for our second session and swam again, we saw more sea life this time. Once all the groups had finished with their rotations we began our walk back to base and set up. After we set up we were given the task of the amazing race, at the start my group and I were determined to finish it. Soon after we got distracted and visited the locals and got candy. Once we came back we changed and began playing chasey on the oval. Soon after dinner was prepared and we ate. We finished of the day with a talk about our day, down at the beach. The second day we packed up and got ready for the second day of snorkelling. We swam at the Basin, Joy and I only did the first round and sat out. Soon after we did our walk back to the main part of Rottnest. My friends and I got lunch at the bakery and finished with ice cream. The ferry ride was very fun, we all went up to the roof and looked out and enjoyed the wind. Overall the experience was a 10/10 and I enjoyed it a lot.

PHOTOS : no photos available yet for me.

CAPBILITIES-

-Resilience – going back into the water and snorkelling even when I am less confident
Collaboration – Working in a team during the Amazing Race
Effective Communication – asking for help if I am struggling (archery)

earthquake resistant engineering challenge!

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the process

The year 9 students of ASC were assigned the task of constructing an earthquake-resistant building purely made out of glue tac and spaghetti with a budget of $60, we had the aim of making this building physically strong with limited materials which gave us a realistic view of what earthquake-prone countries face with since most of them suffer through poverty, so this budget and materials gave us a taste of the problems these countries give us.

RULES:

  • 1.minimum lenght of 60cm
  • budget of $60 for glu tac and spaghetti
  • building must last through the earthquake testing stimulation

my group

My group consisted of Jing Quan, Alex and I and the roles of each group member consisted of…..

Jing Quan: Drawing up designs, brainstorming ideas, and research

Alex: designed and created our building and helped with the second prototype design

Me: gathered all costs and measurements, materials and built the actual buildings.

We all had our own individual strengths such as, Jing who had thought of the idea of the structural aspect of our building and Alex giving in ideas of areas that we could improve in, and I, who used steady hands to build the structure and find more efficient ways to build our tower whenever we ran into a problem.

The engineering process

DEFINE: our group used all the gathered information to look at the problems that we would have to face and figured out what we needed to do to fix the given problem

BRAINSTORM: We drew up ideas of what we could use for our building and talked about efficient shapes and structures that get the job done

RESEARCH: We googles ways that engineers used normal shapes and structures to build stable buildings that would mark all the correct criteria for our assessment.

DESIGN: We got all the measurements and made a worthy design, we made two designs with prototypes A & B

PROTOTYPE A
PROTOTYPE B

PROTOTYPE A: has a traingualr base and structure throughout its whole build, has crossbars gong through in different directions so seismic waves don’t impact in one area, and gets released at the top of the triangular roof

PROTOTYPE B: Also has a triangular foundation but crossbars are not going in different directions but making mini triangular figures inside each section of the building and added length for seismic waves to be released at the top (antenna)

CREATE: we built our designs with the given materials

TEST: we tested our buildings on the earthquake simulator

EVALUATE: from the given results from the testing we saw what needed to be improved and did so.

changes to the process

-Spend more time on research and get a second face to give us feedback ( preferably an engineer) on our building after doing our first and second prototype, this is to get more effective feedback.

– Make these buildings out of real materials that are actually used and applied into daily life to see if it would survive mediocre disasters.

teamwork

Teamwork side things I would say at the start as a group we all started off pretty slack but got to the task, Jing is a very enthusiastic, outgoing person who definitely lifted the spirits up when needed and was given the role as the leader since he was very much interested in the physics behind building a strong structure like this and was handed tasks such as drawing the design and so on, while Alex was a funny and supportive team member who made doing this project very enjoyable, he supported our building and made sure nothing went wrong. At some times Alex and I would slack off and find it tough to focus but Jing always made sure to get our head back in the task ahead of us. By the end of this project, the three of us had definitely gotten closer and got to experience a different side of a normal school assessment.

presentation of our finished project / viewing

In our second prototype (above) you could see that our building was stable at the start from the side to side movements but 6 seconds into the up and down movements our building had tumbled.

in our first prototype, you can see the structure of our building is stable, and not much movement occurs besides the top where the antenna is placed.

final thoughts

In the end I found this assessment a great way to end the year and gave us all a new experience to learn from, this also nurtured my social and teamwork skills and was an overall amazing assessment.

Theres no “I” in team.

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This year, the year 9 students of All Saints were invited to go camping in Kalbarri. It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience that I cherished very much. In the 6 days we spent there, we had to cook every evening with our group. These cooking experiences taught me the importance of teamwork. There was one particularly memorable instance, where I saw my cooking group crack at the encounter of fatigue and exhaustion. It had led to us being cranky and not productive. However, to overcome this, we knew we had to use effective communication and organisation to resolve our issues. Firstly, we all decided to give each other jobs that catered to our own profitable abilities, this made cooking a lot easier and more efficient for us. On top of that, we regularly checked in on each other to see if we needed any help. We also made sure that we gave a hand to any member who needed an extra ingredient that was too far away to reach. As our tacos were sizzling in the wok, we collectively decided to communicate on how we should clean up our cutlery and tools, as we wanted to make sure we were ready for the night. In addition, we soon realised after three days into cooking that being organised was a great advantage to us. We equally divided our cooking utensils and at the end we made sure we had everything packed neatly, ready for the next day ahead. After this experience, camp has made me stretch the boundaries to my comfort zone. It also provided me with a great taste of the importance of teamwork and so as having good communication/organisation skills in the real world. Hereafter, I had greatly gained confidence in working as a team and learned skills which would come into play in the near future. *in this picture Tim and I were extremely exhausted but pulled through to make some yummy tacos!

Gene Gibson trials by meena.muralidharan

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“In this project, we learnt about the principles of justice that uphold Australia’s legal system, such as the presumption of innocence, an impartial judiciary, and the right to legal representation. I studied the case of Gene Gibson, and analysed how these principles were both upheld and violated in this case. After writing an essay on the topic, we were required to incorporate feedback and edit the essay so that it was fit for online publication. This essay is the end result of that editing process. It demonstrates my ability to take feedback, and to refine a piece of written work to produce a professional result.”

Gene Gibson was an innocent young man just minding his own business,until one day he stumbled across the body of the victim Josh Warneke. For this case , its been chosen to find three ways that our legal system has failed Gene with their own rules,the ones chosen where (right to silence,equal treatment before the law and adversary trials.Lastly one rule they decided to follow which was right to appeal.

the background behind this case was that Gene Gibson a 21 year old aboriginal male from Broome and he suffered from cognitive impairment,was poorly educated as well. One day on the 12th of February he was driving down a road drunk with his father until he drove past a dead corpse which happened to be Josh. Gene was terrified out of his mind but just kept driving trying to not recollect what he saw. Sadly in the year 2012 Gene was prime suspect of the death of Josh Warneke and taken to court.

Right to silence is one of the most commonly know rules in court and meant that the accused does not to speak against their will unless its their address,D.O.B and any crucial important information.In Genes trials they did the exact opposite and made him say things against his will and understanding . They also made him say “i killed the white man” even though he pleaded he didnt but was verbally abused into saying he was the killer.

Adversary trials,means that the court is split into almost like a “referee and player” situation, this means that the judge should not favour one side more then the other and only come to a final choice from hard evidence given.But whereas for Gene,the judges barely heard his voice and what he was trying to say,instead they listened to the first piece of information the police gave in which wasn’t even concrete.

Lastly equal treatment before the law, this rule states that no matter gender,race,sexuality etc everyone should be treated equally and no different.This was not used on Gene, they knew gene has issues and was not fluent in English but knowing this they still went along with the interrogation and didnt give him an option for a translator. Its also clearly stated that if police have to work with aboriginal people they have to be knowledgeable in their culture and be respectful about their ways in life, but in Genes instant none of the above where used and he was given racist and under knowledge policemen to work with.

The one principle that they followed was right to appeal which means that the accused has the right to go to a three panel judge prove their innocence while using their own evidence. The victims mother, knew from the start that Gene was not the murderer of her son,so she went to the three panel with her own evidence and proved that he was innocent and showed them the courts mistakes.

Gene walked again as a free man on 2014 after two years of being wrongly imprisoned.He was given 2.5 dollars as compensation from the government and a personal apology from Jack Ollgaurd (the main police on his case),and all eleven policemen who helped investigate got suspended for their behaviour on the case.So in the end Gene had finally won a long two year fight against the law.

Wrongly convicted WA man Gene Gibson gets $1.5m compensation
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