Starting Tech | 2019

Starting Tech 2019

This year is my first year in our top syndicate called Totara which means that I am starting tech. Tech is short for technology and is where we go to our Greymouth High School (Grey High). We walk there and get sorted into five different groups which all go to different things like metal work, making things with materials, coding on computers, woodwork and cooking. We go every week on Wednesday. I got sorted into woodwork which is the one I wanted to get sorted into and about five of my friends are in my group as well. So far we have been to Tech twice.

In woodwork we have a teacher called Mr Stevens. He's a nice and humorous guy. On the first day we started making our drafts and coming up with a good design for the tongs we would be making, but before we started designing them we had to fill out a bunch of safety stuff and Mr Stevens took us on a tour and showed us where we had to go in the case of an emergency. We had to make a pair of tongs designed to do what we wanted, for example I designed a pair of noodle tongs and put long pointy ends on them so you could twirl noodles and stab pasta on them. I also put holes in them so if you serve pasta with them then the water can drain out.

On the second day we decided on our final design that we would be making and then we went into the workshop. The workshop is a classroom where there are lots of tools and lots of wooden benches with storage underneath for our bags. We first had to construct a working prototype from cardboard and then had to get that verified from Mr Stevens and only then could we begin to make the actual thing. First you had to sketch the design on the wood and use up as much of the wood as possible. Mr Stevens also taught us how to use the machines we would be using to cut out the design. We were using these machines which you had to slide the wood under and then this blade goes up and down really fast and begins to cut the wood. So far I'm up to cutting the wood and I'm really excited to get back in the workshop. I'm really happy that Totara go to Tech because I really enjoy it.