Bomb Gone!

My heart pounding and pounding, I rush to the designated area, I don’t want to miss this. I can hear my comrades shouting. Luckily I made it in time. I sit down and gaze upon the darkened door window panels. We place our hands on deck with our backs facing the burst. Alerted we have only two minutes. Sweat drips down from my head. My heartbeat is racing. The broadcast alerts us to shut our eyes and put our goggles on. The count up starts. Every single second memories of my loved ones flash and race through my mind. Why have I come here. I knew the consequences but my naive mind tempted me anyway. I’m sorry.. Mum, Dad. 

The last moments before the burst detonated, I heard ‘four, three, two, one. An intense blast trembled through my ears. My hearing begins to fade. All of a sudden a loud voice in my head saying ‘Bomb Gone!’ We spend fifteen seconds in excruciating heat penetrating through our back. Before we opened our eyes I could see through my eyelids to the bones of my hands. Opening our eyes we face the burst. It was a sight to see. An enormous mushroom cloud soaring in the sky upon the horizon. This may have been an amazing experience however, I had ruined my future ahead.

Blake NZ-VR: Marine Life

Sir Peter Blake, a New Zealand yachtsman. He won the 1989 – 1990 Whitbread Round the World Race. This race was special in reasoning that according to people’s experiences it takes around one year to complete this race. Soon after he had won, he realised that racing would change him. Therefore he had quit and sold all of his sailing boats. With the money he had after selling his boats, he had bought another boat. This boat was a Seamaster model. He planned to travel around the world to research about the ocean and tell everyone how we humans have affected the ocean. Sadly he had died on December the 5th of 2001, pirates shot and killed him while he was on a environmental exploration trip in South America monitoring global warming and  pollution  for the UN (United Nations)

In February of 2019 James Gibson launched a program called Blake NZ-VR. This company tries their best to go to every single school in Aotearoa, New Zealand to teach year 7 and year 8 students about how us humans affect marine life and how we can change that.

Blake NZ-VR records marine life using 360 degree water proof cameras to show us what happens underwater when we, humans affect them. Instead of having a video shown on a slideshow we get to use VR Headsets (Virtual-Reality) technology to watch them. When wearing the VR Headsets it seems like you’re in the video.

The video showed many marine animals such as, the common dolphin, humpback whales, southern right whales, great white sharks, New Zealand sea lions, pilot whales, stingrays, rainbow fishes  and a lot more. They also showed a dirty part of the ocean which was caused by pollution which is caused by us.

After the lesson I took in one thing they taught us, which was never to litter. The rest of the things they taught us I already do. So remember viewers, let’s take care of our ocean!

A Letter of Advice

What’s up T, I had a blast last night at your basketball game but I’ve noticed there was something wrong with how you played last night. You looked worried about something. Well my advice to you is to focus on what you love doing, just keep the bad thoughts off your mind. It’s good to open up about your feelings, to someone close. Once you’ve got things off your chest you’ll feel a lot a lot better. I’m always here for you when you’re feeling down. Let’s hangout sometime.

See you soon T!

Experimenting with EPRO8

This past week our class had been building mechanical contraptions using metal aluminium bars, connectors,  axles, gears, ropes and wheels. Today we built a dump truck with a working tailgate (large container at the back of a dump truck which contains waste.) The tailgate functions with a lever we built using one medium sized metal aluminium bar attached to an axle which turns 360 degrees. The bar pushes the tailgate upwards causing it to tip things inside of the tailgate towards the ground at an approximately 45 degree angle.

Afterwards we built a functional gearbox which can lift heavy things using a large metal aluminium bar, axles, gears and a rope. We had fun doing this. Thank you EPRO8 for sponsoring us! <3

Outrigger Canoeing (Waka Ama)

Yesterday, year eight and seven went to go canoeing. We weren’t canoeing with normal canoes though, the canoes we used are called an ‘Outrigger Canoe’, these canoes are built with longer and narrower hulls. In fact Outrigger Canoes are more hydrodynamic (Physics of objects moving through liquids.) Year eight and seven departed our school around 9:00, we rode buses to ‘Manukau Outrigger Canoe Club’, the club building was around the outskirts of the Tamaki River. Our class was separated girl and boy, but some had to sit out and take turns. We were taught by our instructors. The key things of Outrigger canoeing are timing, technique and method. After the lessons we had a race, Not surprisingly the girls won. It wasn’t surprising in reasoning that their Waka (Canoe) was a lot newer. Their timing was okay. Once the races were over we had to help put our canoes back in the canoe club sheds. We all were tired afterwards in spite of that we had a blast. 

 

Pennies for Hitler Clay Project

 

 

Room 8 is reading Pennies for Hitler by Jackie French. As part of our learning we had to choose a critical moment from one section of the book my group chose when the ‘Library’ in the book was destroyed. We created this scene in clay, and our rationale we wrote was ‘The Library being destroyed was chosen in reasoning that Georg (Protagonist in story) had no particular place which he could be comfortable in until he found the Library. His only place that he could feel comfortable in had been destroyed.