In week two Year 9’s headed to Sydney for The Urban Challenge.

The Urban Challenge provided an exciting and new experience of a camp for my group this year. We embarked on different experiences each day, some of us seeing landmarks and interesting places, as well as taking ferryies and experiencing Sydney’s train system for the first time. Navigating through Sydney proved to be a tricky but rewarding task, planning where to eat, making and reaching reservations and catching public transport in time all gave us a huge sense of responsibility and independence in such a large city. It was a great opportunity to learn and hone important skills, especially time management, social awareness, budget management, as well as collaboration skills, no matter who you had to work with.

In the Urban Challenge each team member has an important role that contributes to the running of the team. With the navigator and transport manager working together, we used public transport to navigate our way around. We started with a focus on service as we participated in the Cook4Good program with Kids Giving Back. We spent the day cooking and packaging meals for people experiencing homelessness or food insecurity. We heard from guest speakers with first hand experiences which helped us to understand this issue faced by many. 

A lot of us had to work with some people we didn’t know all that well or don’t associate with regularly, which gave us an opportunity to get to know people you wouldn’t normally think to talk to and learn to work with them. The Urban Challenge placed a few people into a seemingly uncomfortable situation which then budded into companionship and effective collaboration required to get through the day's activities. Working with a variety of people proved to be a fun experience, and its highly possible to make a few new friends along the way.

As for the tasks selected and presented to us by the Game Master, we were often challenged with puzzling clues, including riddles and morse code to direct us to our objectives; Other tasks were given to us more directly, but required us to interview strangers, travel a relatively long distance or help us decide what to have for lunch. These tasks brought our group together as we made decisions and deciphered clues together. We embarked on exciting adventures through Sydney with plenty of photography involved to rack up our points for the challenge, as well as completing bonus challenges for extra points to hopefully get us closer to a proud victory.

The Urban Challenge is very different from a traditional camp, and it definitely pushed all of us outside of our comfort zone as we explored a city we didn’t know well. The camp was a lot of fun, and we learnt how important it is to work as a team and communicate well. This camp was not just about how many points you could get but also how well you work with others, it’s up to you to decide how much fun you will have by participating and trying at all of the activities. 

Melody T and Sienna V - Maathai