πrates: Quest for Lost Treasure!
BY UNNAVA VENKATA RAMANA NITIN
“Yarr, me hearties! Set sail for adventure!!!” The scholars arrived early on the morning of 14th October 2017 for an exciting day of fun activities that had been planned out by the Special Projects Portfolio.
The majority of the event was a pirate themed scavenger hunt in which the scholars went to four different locations (South Spine, Hive, Innovation Center and Yunnan Gardens) to find puzzle pieces through which they could earn points. There were four teams with the most creative (sarcasm overload!) team names ever – Red Boat, Yellow Gun, Blue Shell and Green Parrot. The teams were all given cute origami figures that corresponded to their teams.
Each location had three puzzle pieces per team and the four teams racked their brains and searched far and wide for their pieces. Especially gruelling was the Yunnan Gardens location where the wide area to search pushed most of the scholars into insanity babbling on about how bushes were an absolutely devious hiding place for the green colored puzzle pieces!
Alongside this scavenger hunt, teams could also visit stations to earn extra points. There were four station games in total that were played in rotation. Firstly, there was a modified version of hangman where the team loses if they don’t guess their words before their team member has finished ‘walking the plank’. Second, there was the Pirate rush hour game, where teams had to manoeuvre their ‘ships’ to see if they could get them out of a traffic jam ala the popular board game Rush Hour. Third, there was a hilarious segment where scholars were given pictures of bootlegged or ripped off movie posters and they had to guess which movie they came from. Finally, there was ‘Arr you a pirate’, a trivia game where the scholars were asked pirate themed questions that were either serious or extremely lame puns (“How much did the pirate charge for earrings? A Buck-an-ear!” Oh God why?).
After a hearty meal, the scholars were extremely excited for the finale that they had been waiting for since the morning. IT WAS NERF WAR TIME! They assembled at the field outside SPMS to be greeted by some obstacles on the field, 36 guns lying on the floor and 900 bullets. Quickly, the scholars ran down to test out all the different types of guns (on their unwitting peers of course!). After a quick safety briefing, the scholars were split back into their teams where they played against the other team in a dodgeball-esque showdown where extra points could be scored for knocking down the opponents’ flag. After playing each other, the final segment of Nerf war was at hand – THE FREE FOR ALL SHOOTOUT! For ten minutes, the scholars went berserk, friends turned to enemies, bullets rained down on everyone. In the last ten seconds, they decided to all point their guns towards me (for which I have to thank my lovely juniors sigh) and let loose. I’d like to say I was brave like Al Pacino in Scarface but my loud high-pitched squeal begged to differ.
After, the bullets were collected and returned, the scholars went back to the LT where the prize presentation ceremony took place. The teams were given wonderful bags filled with treats and the winning team was given a beautiful hand-made treasure chest filled with their share of the booty. The winning two teams also won pirate hats for each of their members who could not look more delighted. The Special Projects Portfolio would like to sincerely thank all of you for your enthusiastic participation!
Gallery: πrates: Quest for Lost Treasure!
JUMP, CN Yang! 2017
BY CAMILLE MAU
When we think of any phrase involving the word “jump”, the one which immediately comes to mind is “jump for joy”. Indeed, it is fitting that the final event of CN Yang in the 2016/2017 school year is titled “JUMP, CN Yang!”. We jump to celebrate the end of exams and the end of school – in our unique CN Yang fashion. Now, anyone who knows me for five minutes knows I don’t do sports, but here in this CN Yang event, there’s plenty more than just mindless jumping.
This event takes us to Zoom Park Singapore, an indoors trampoline park, to literally jump about to our heart’s content. The park itself is constructed in a warehouse, with multiple elastic play areas to bounce, roll (without slipping, we hope), and simply to have a good time. There is also a rock wall to climb, and climb we did.
The event starts by allowing everyone a bit of free time to move around and get accustomed to the play area. Following this short period, we were then split into multiple groups and participated in multiple games, all of them with a twist. Enter dodgeball with mathematics – where everyone wears a number (on the extended real number line, no less). In each round, the game master will call out a question, ranging from simple arithmetic sums, to functional limits, to integration. The person who must dodge the ball each round wears the answer to a question called out by the game master.
A relay race with anagrams from philosophy and ethics. Literally, we had a relay race with different modes of jumping on a trampoline to bring back slips of paper, which were anagrams of different terms and names found from philosophy and ethics. Points are scored by decoding these anagrams, and some of them weren’t easy!
Captain’s ball. Shockingly, this was perhaps the most typical game, the first part being a regular game of captain’s ball – except, of course, played on trampolines instead of stationary ground. And after the game, the points scored equated to the number of physics questions we were allowed to answer. Yes, we scrambled to score points just so we could answer physics questions. Hashtag YangCyantists.
A rock-climbing race, where points are scored both based on height reached and the number of chemical equations solved. We crossed a styrofoam sea in turns to climb a rock wall, just so we could solve for the coefficients of chemical equations pasted on the wall to gain points.
And to top it all off, a scavenger hunt for Biology questions around the entire park area. Personally, it reminds me of an escape room where clues are hidden in the most unassuming of places. Some were easy to find, some were not. But I like looking for such things, so I spent a good chunk of my time looking for them.
That’s right.
We celebrated the end of exams.
With whatever comes out in exams.
How truly terrifying.
But that’s CN Yang for you. This is what gets us excited, after all. And I’ve been waiting my whole life for a group of people who celebrates the end of academics with more academics, so everything works out. To end the event, we had a pizza party! A whole delicious spread of pizzas to choose from, although I have heard that having pizzas negates the calorie losses from jumping about. But, it’s the end of exams, so who cares?
Accompanying the pizza party was a disco party! After all the games were done with, the lights went out, the colours went on, the music played, and everyone was free to break out their moves on the jump floor. By this point, I was already eating, though. 😛
Tired but contented is how I would describe us ending the event. We had our customary group photo, of course. I have heard stories that after getting back to hall, some of us just crashed, and some of us ended up aching for days after. In the end, though, I couldn’t ask for a more fitting end to the school year. Happy holidays, everyone!
