集合, 13th March

Hi Guides!

On Friday, we had initiatives and creative gadgeting. Coy 1 made stickers and Coy 2 made crayon art!

Coy 1

The stickers Coy 1 made are those Tumblr stickers that are trendy now and you can most likely find them on your friend's laptop. Guides were required to print out images in colour which would eventually be made into stickers. Then, these images were cut out and secured onto the sticker paper with clear scotch tape and cut out. Do be careful to peel of the correct layer of sticker paper or you might ruin your sticker! And it's as easy as that! For those who want to make these stickers, do note that the sticker paper can be bought at Popular. Xue Ying bought the A4 sized sticker paper from the Bras Basah store so you should try going there. It is not available at the school bookshop! We hope your stickers turned out well (mine are very pretty) and that your patrols had fun making these stickers together! :D

Coy 2

Coy 2 did crayon art, which was to paste crayons at the top of a piece of paper, and then use a hairdryer to melt the crayons. After which, the crayons would melt and drip down the piece of paper, creating a unique piece of art! :) Crayon art is becoming increasingly common, especially on Tumblr! After getting the hang of it, crayon art becomes very easy and fun! There's also a lot of experimenting involved, so everyone can get creative to create one-of-a-kind pieces of crayon art.

Creative Gadgeting

For creative gadgeting, patrols were assigned in pairs to build certain gadgets. P1&2 built houses, P3&4 built towers, P5&6 built bridges, P7&8 built gateways, and P9&10 built vehicles. Patrols were given 45 minutes to complete these gadgets without the help of the Y4s. The purpose of this activity was to hone the Year 1s lash tying skills and to train the Year 3s leadership skills before they head off for PLTC!

Here are the structures built by the patrols :)

Thoughts from a Year 1...

We made a few mistakes for creative gadgeting.

1.We didn't 报时 frequently enough,and had to be reminded by seniors.

2.Some of the knots,like diagonal lash,and square lash were either too lose,or not done properly.

3.We spent too much time discussing on what to do for the tower.

4.A lot of us were not doing anything while others were tying knots.

5.We didn't really include everyone in our discussion for the creative gadgeting.

Thoughts from a Year 1...

I think Friday's 集合 was very interesting as we got to do Crayon art during initiative. It was very interesting as it was my first time doing crayon art. The most challenging part was to think of creative ideas to do the crayon art. The next activity was gadgeting. Our patrol had to build a bridge. The Year 3 seniors decided to build 2 tripods stand as the sides of the bridge. All of us had to co-operate with each other in order to build the bridge. We were also given a time limit to build the bridge thus we had to try our best to work within the time frame given and had to try our best to tie the leashes. We also had to listen to the instructions given by the seniors and understand them clearly. Yesterday's 集合 was very meaningful as we have learnt many things that were important in life.

Thoughts from a Year 2...

On Friday, we had initiatives and creative gadgets for 集合. For initiatives, we learnt how to make crayon art by pasting crayons on a piece of paper and melting the crayons using heat from a hairdryer. The photos of the completed art work that the Year 4s showed us were really nice but unfortunately mine did not turn out as well, as I did not stick the crayons to the paper properly and the crayons were rolling about from the wind from the hairdryer. However, it was still really interesting as I have never known of such an art technique before. After that, we had creative gadgeting. We built a bridge from two tripods and I get to guide the Year 1s along in their lashing. 集合was really fun and enriching for me as I learnt new stuff.

Thoughts from a Year 3...

On Friday, we did crayon art for initiatives.  After the briefing, we sat down in patrols and started designing our drawing block.  We managed to have time to catch up with each other as we spent about 2.5 hours chatting with each other. I feel that having an initiative every few weeks is really nice as we get to spend time and bond with our batch mates and patrol mates.  I feel that we can grow closer through these activities.

After initiatives, we had to practise our gadgeting skills.  P5 and P6 were tasked to build a bridge using whatever materials we could.  Since it was a creative gadget, we had to brainstorm and come up with an idea as fast as possible. The Year 3s had to step up to lead and the Year 2s did a good job of guiding the Year 1s.  In the end, the outcome of our creative gadget was good and we were satisfied with it.

Thoughts from a Year 3...

This particular 集合 was split into 2 parts.

For the first part, we had initiatives. We were split into our respective companies and carried out separate activities. Coy 1 made DIY stickers. It was an interesting experience and definitely something I would like to do at home in my free time as well.

As for the second part, we had to build creative gadgets based on given themes. For my patrol, P2, our theme was a house. Having close to no experience with building such structures before, I was at a loss of how to start. It was unlike the usual gadgets which we were familiar with and being posed with such a challenge, we found difficulties in progressing. Right from the start, we spent loads of time discussing on how to build the house and did not include the juniors. Even as we started building the actual product, sense of urgency was greatly lacking and we seem to have a very blurred direction on where the structure is heading towards. I was disappointed in myself, but it was apparent that the seniors were even more disappointed in us, given that they called us out for a lecture. The lecture was not in vain though, as we did snap to our senses afterwards. Towards the 25 minute mark, we picked up pace and managed to somehow and somewhat complete the house in time, although only after 2 time extensions (totaling up to 10 minutes). 

Overall, performance was definitely sub-standard and unsatisfactory. However, this serves as an apt wake-up call for all of us Year 3s as PLTC is just around the corner, and we do not have many 集合s left to brush up our skills. So we should really make full use of each and every 集合 to prepare us for the challenges awaiting us in PLTC and beyond (as we become the leadership batch). Continuing with this kind of standard is not an option.