Obstacle Journey, 19th September

Hi Guides!

For Friday's 集合, it was an Obstacle Journey (OJ)! 

The theme of this OJ: This is the current dystopian country, where a zombie apocalypse has occurred. Being the only survivors, the Guides are to find an antidote to save themselves. But in order to find the antidote, they are to find out the person holding on to that antidote. That antidote is the key to everyone's survival and the only way to put an end to this zombie apocalypse. So the Guides are to set off on their journey to find clues as to who may be holding on to the antidote. Every station that they complete, a clue will be handed to them. At the very end, the Guides would have to piece the clues up together to find out who has the antidote.

Firstly, the Guides were given 10 minutes to take their logistics. Then, they set off for their respective station in pairs of patrols.

Station 1: Electric Fence Station

The Guides were given 12 minutes to make their way through the electric fence. Only one person was allowed to pass through at any point of time and they were only allowed to take one post it per person. The Guides had to transport all their logistics and claim all the 6 post-its pasted throughout the electric fence. The rest of the patrol was to do a circuit of 3 minutes leg raise and 3 minutes girls’ style pumping position. The Guides had to decipher all the Guides’ notes and Guides codes within these 12 minutes.

The second part of the station was to make a water filter and find or build a structure that could hide 6 patrol members within 8 minutes. 

Thoughts from a Year 2...

We had difficulty finding the stuffs but we managed to complete the station. From this station, our things got taken by the seniors and we were slow in doing the PT given. Hence, I think we can improved by taking better care of our things and have better sense of urgency.

Station 2: Firelighting

The patrol was given 10 minutes to build a signal fire, and create 2 distress signals for “Need food and water” and “safe to land” and also source for the right plant for consumption. While starting the signal fire, one patrol member was to go out every one minute to answer questions on survival skills.

For part 2 of this station, each patrol had to start one fire with solid fuel, and fry one egg per patrol. The Guides were given 6 minutes to fry and eat the egg.

Thoughts from a Year 2...

From this part, we learnt that we must damp the kindlings in order to create smoke and set the bricks further apart, such that the fire will be bigger. We have learnt the tips on how to light a fire quickly from the seniors and will do so in the future.

Thoughts from a Year 2...

Our firelighting technique on the solid fuel was not correct, we did not manage to get it lighted up even after many many tries. We wasted a lot of matchsticks too. We should have waited for the yuanzila to catch fire before letting go of the match. Alternatively, we could have used a lighter instead. For this station, we could have 报时 a lot more and also cheered more and we should have done things faster and taken note more of the small details.

Station 3: Roman Chariot

The Patrol had to build a roman chariot and transport one person from the start to the end. They had to complete this entire task within 11 minutes.However, one pair had to go out to do PT continuously.

For the second part of the station. the patrol had to decode the words and find the casualty. Thereafter, they had to treat the casualty.

Thoughts from a Year 2...

Overall for this station our sense of urgency was extremely low and we didn't involve our year ones as well.

Thoughts from a Year 1...

I learnt some First Aid during this station as well as how to build a proper Roman Chariot. I hope that we will work faster in the future!

Station 4: 夜里行军

The Patrols had to make their way through the classroom blindfolded and afterwards, they were tested on their First Aid skills.

Thoughts from a Year 2...

Our patrol managed to make our way through the whole course within the given time limit. However, there was a lack of communication between the Patrol Leader and the patrol members hence the back people lag a little. After that we were tested on our first aid skills, which we managed to do all. However, we could have better manpower allocation instead of just one person treating a casualty.

Station 5: Gadgeting

The Patrols had 20 minutes to build a creative gadget and do orienteering to obtain the necessary logistics. 12 minutes into the activity, they were informed that they had 1 casualty to treat. Afterwards, they had to use their creative gadget to shoot paper balls into the drain to show that it was effective. For this, the suggested solution was a catapult.

For the bonus activity, the patrols had to treat a snake bite and light a fire using kindlings and a lighter.

Thoughts from a Year 2...

We should have listened to our Year 1s as they had built a catapult during their Skills Training. Thus, from this, we have learnt the importance of involving everyone in our patrol, including the Year 1s so that we can build better structures.

Thoughts from a Year 1...

I think that we should have spoken up more if we had ideas and we also could have had a better sense of urgency. We should also cheer and 报时 constantly without prompting by our seniors. 

Overall

The Patrols had been given some clues after each station which they had to piece together to reveal who had the antidote. In the end, all the Patrols managed to solve the clues and realise that Ms Sim held the antidotes (the drinks given to the Patrols)!

1st Place: P1 and P9

2nd Place: P2 and P8

3rd Place: P5 and P7

Consolation: P4 and P10, P3 and P6

Thoughts from a Year 2...

Overall I feel that what could be improved on was our sense of urgency and also our patrol morale. Our patrol morale was quite low as we always had to be prompted to cheer and also to 报时. We also moved around slowly and did not really work fast enough or up to standard. I think we did well in our OC station as we were very efficient in lighting the kindlings up and also cooking the egg. We also read up on our notes and were able to answer most of the questions that were asked and also to administer first aid onto "casualties".

Thoughts from a Year 2...

I feel that we had an improvement from the last OJ. Also, although our morale was not very high at first, it became better as we went through the different OJ stations. However, I feel that I could have stepped up more to lead especially when I was the PL.

Thoughts from a Year 2...

For this entire OJ, there were many things we could improve on. One being 报时 and cheering. Constant prompting from our seniors were required and yet we still did not do it very often, And most of the time, the Year 2s were the one 报时ing. As for cheering, we only cheered when we weren't busy. Instead we should make it a point to keep cheering so as to boost our morale. Also, our lashes can be improved as most were considerably loose and this made the structure a little shaky. We should also brush up on our survival skills and first aid so as to be completely familiar with it and not just roughly knowing. Decoding of Guides code should also be practiced because we did take a rather long time to do it. PLs should give much clearer instructions and everyone should be involved as inter batch communication was indeed lacking. We cannot be complacent and we should continuously seek ways for improvement as the best is yet to be.

Good job to all the patrols! :)