Oct 20 Develop Me TY Workshop
Develop Me TY workshop
Last week TY students participated in a workshop called “Develop Me”. This workshop is designed to develop our teamwork, planning, problem solving and leadership skills.
In the first half of the day, we did a board game like exercise called “The search for the Lost Dutchman’s Gold”. In this exercise we had to work together as a class to collect as much gold as possible from the gold mine, while having a time restraint of 20 in game-days, which were two minutes each. In every class we were split up into multiple groups that could work and trade together to achieve the overall goal of collecting the most gold bars. This strengthened the bond of the class as we had to team up to maximise every group’s profits. This exercise was entertaining while also developing our teamwork skills further.
In the second half of the day, we were assigned the task of building a bridge faster than the other classes. In this task, two leaders were appointed who oversaw the building of the bridge and they split the class up into four groups and each had to build different parts of the bridge. There were bases, towers, ramps and roadways. When each team was finished constructing their parts, we connected them all together to make the bridge. This exercise had a 50-minute time limit, so we were under pressure to get it done. In the end we had a bridge that nearly spanned the length of the classroom and was six feet in height. This exercise developed our critical thinking, leadership and once again teamwork skills.
Overall, the workshop helped us develop key skills needed in life while also being an enjoyable and fun experience.
Andrew McGee
On the week commencing the 7th of October, all TY classes took part in a workshop known as ‘Develop Me’. Our two taskmasters of the day’s project were Gerard, and Owen. We quickly came to realize that this was not just a workshop, it was a competition between classes. The project assigned to us was very similar sounding to a fun, strategic board game, however we will find out later what this mirage was really covering. The board game involved five teams devising a plan, to get to the lost dutchman’s mine, which is full of gold and gather as much gold as possible per day at the mine. Each team is granted twenty days (aka 40 minutes) in the mine and making it back to the town with the spoils was essential to prevent disqualification. With the competitive spirit rising in all students, plans were hatched and executed to varying degrees of perfect! When winners of the match ups were announced, cheers could be heard from one room with a muffled silence emitted from the other. Gerard revealed to us that the game was in fact a way of developing an understanding of the key components of project management and self-performance within a team. The takeaway was the fact that the winners had the strategy of sharing resources (fuel and supplies) across all 5 teams and they planned their 20 days at the very beginning of the activity…leading them to victory.
This was not the end however, activity 2 awaited us.
The second activity introduced us to the problem of ‘Tom’s Canyon Ford.’ Now knowing the key components in a successful team project, everybody was focused and ready to fight for a win. The mission – should we choose to accept it, is to build a bridge, using K-nex (lego like) to cross over the Canyon Ford. Two leaders were chosen from the class and they got straight to work managing their teams. Each table was assigned a different piece of the bridge to construct. On top of this, we were being timed against other teams, so the pressure was on. Although there was some undeniable uncertainty in the room on whether the bridge would be complete within the given sixty-minute time limit, we stayed motivated and completed the task. Everybody was overjoyed at our accomplishment, and on top of this we learned to do the following when we are next building a bridge (or undertaking any project):
Appoint a leader
Leader should gather the inputs of the team members
Pair people with the tasks they are most motivated to do
TY’22/23 left the workshop, proud of the accomplishments and more knowledgeable on project management and teamwork.
Bailey Fowler