By Cherry Nwe and Lim Pei Ying
It’s 7am on the first day of school and streams of NUS High students arrived at the canteen. This was the Orientation Planning Team 2016, all gathered in their respective committees buzzing with excitement not just from meeting their friends after a month-long break and the start of new school term, but also for what they have in store for the school over the next 3 days. With a final briefing, NUS High School’s Orientation 2016 was off to a blazing start with the Helmet Cheer!
The Year 2s began Day 1 with their External Activity, racing around Clementi to complete tasks to gain clues, tools and stocks to repair the living quarters, which was part of the process to the final aim – launching the spaceship! From charades to map-memorising games, the different stations challenged the classes’ teamwork. One particular station required the class to move through a 7 by 7 grid to reach an end point. But the game was not without obstacles: minesweepers were placed on random squares of the grid, and if they were ‘killed’ by one, they would have to restart the station.
Day 2 brought the Year 2s back home with the classes competing to fix and reboot the engine for the space launch! To do so, the recruits needed to assimilate their problem-solving skills to assemble the engine, join forces to build camaraderie, yet keep a lookout for unanticipated enemies as they find their way through uncharted waters, overcoming various hurdles and figuring out their true friends and foes.
Prisoner’s Dilemma embroiled one class in a three-way battle as they contemplated whether to share points with their peers. Quizzing their knowledge of the school, some students sneakily (or rather amusingly) snuck out of the theatrette attempting to find the right name of the building in which the school’s sickbay is located, or the name of that room located behind the library and on the way to the Boarding School.
Another station got the class up on their feet in a game of chase. With some intense play-offs, the OGLs and Station Masters (SMs) tried their best to ensure fair play in the chaos that ensued. Accumulating their scores from all three games, each class was then given different materials to build specific parts of the spaceship. Rounding up one packed morning, it was heartening to see the classes work together, sharing their resources in order to achieve one ultimate common goal, especially after all the games of deception earlier in the morning.
“Fleming bomb, Fleming bomb, Fleming bomb to Fibo bomb!” Day 3 saw the Year 2s split into their respective houses and the energy level reached its peak. All seemed well as the recruits completed their tasks, growing closer to finding the location of the electricity switch, only to find themselves stuck in the wrong location and having to solve puzzles to escape the room. Racing against time, Nobel arrived first at the final location, followed by Fleming, Faraday and ironically, Fibonacci, actually arrived at the escape room first.
With three days of fun-filled activities carefully planned for them, it is hoped that the Year 2s were able to forge stronger bonds with their classmates and housemates as they enter their second year in their NUS High journey.
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