21 September 2021
As a way to encourage design thinking and innovation, Middle Years students were invited to join ‘The Apprentice’ Program in Term 3. Eleven teams started the journey, and we are now down to the final few teams.
The first task was to make an advertisement for the “Widget”, which was any product or service they could imagine. All the Widget needed to do was to solve a current problem for consumers. A wide array of products was advertised including
- A hat that cools you down
- The glow-in-the-dark TV remote
- The squeaky dog toy that only dogs could hear
- A device to straighten out all those papers boys leave at the bottom of their school bag
- A rent-a-friend program
- Virtual reality surfing
- A lolly dispenser for students in your class
- A mask that fits inside your keyring, so you never forget it when you leave home
- The alarm clock that always gets you up
- The auto-scheduler for student homework and assignments.
- All products had to include the phrase ‘Every day at 4pm’ and receive a verbal endorsement from a teacher on camera. The students showed an amazing ability to problem solve and demonstrated their creative flair with high quality videos.
The field was narrowed for the second task, where the teams had to produce a thirty-second elevator pitch on a new pizza flavour. Some of the options might not have been particularly tempting (banana, pringles, chocolate, marshmallows, icing sugar and even bacon and eggs!), but again the energy and enthusiasm was abundantly clear.
Again a few teams were eliminated and this week the remaining groups had to design a new SPSC School bag. They had to explain their idea and how it solved any problems of the existing design. Thank you to Mr Coventry, Mr De Lacy, Ms Wellington, Ms Christensen and Mrs Bruce for acting as the judges.
The Apprentice is now down to the last handful of teams who will compete early next term to be anointed as the very first SPSC Apprentice!
David Scott
Subject Coordinator Commerce