Windsor Strong students took to the seas Thursday. Well, kind of. They raced the cardboard boats they spent this week building in the Windsor Central High School pool. The activity combined engineering, ingenuity, and more.
“Everything, all four weeks of Windsor Strong, is about life skills and skills acquisition. It is not about the product as much as the process and using the skills of communication, critical thinking, problem-solving, teamwork, and collaboration,” said Windsor Central Middle School assistant principal Kelly Vavalle. “These skills will create future-ready learners. This camp isn’t about what they end up with but the path they took. The plus here is that they all work together really well.”
Three engineers from BAE Systems, including two recent Windsor graduates, visited Windsor Strong Tuesday to share their career paths and give some tips on boat building.
“I actually really liked it. I liked when the engineers gave us tips. It helped a lot,” said Windsor Strong Academy student Coby Christian. “We definitely could have gotten more done if we worked together more. But I learned it’s important to prepare for things you don’t know are going to happen. We didn’t know our boat was going to (race) a second time and we didn’t prepare for it.”
Knight Lights campers continued to activities that increase literacy and numeracy, as well as work on fine motor and gross motor skills. Students also have STEAM activities. Thursday, students made bracelets following a pattern of binary language based on their first initial. The beads were made of material that changes color in ultraviolet light, so the bracelets can show when its wearer needs to have sunscreen.
Tennis, track, swimming & diving, and volleyball camps Finished Thursday.
Tennis players played doubles, held relay races to work on conditioning, and learned an overhand smash shot.
Volleyball players broke into groups to participate in the volleyball Olympics. They used the skills of hitting, passing, setting, and serving to win prizes and determine which county took home gold.
Swimming campers continued to work on the butterfly stroke and learned about diving off the block to start races.
Divers performed front flips, front-dive tucks, and back jumps and a back dive.
Track athletes reviewed sprinting and long jumping, then worked on relay races. Coaches pushed athletes to break their marks in the 55-meter race and long jump
Next week’s sports camps are baseball, softball, and lacrosse.