Warning a winner
When your college principal rings you at home, it’s student instinct to think the worst.
But in the case of three year 12 Tawa College students, it was fantastic news – they had won $11,500 in a national road safety competition.
Trish Kumar, 17, says she was worried when she got the call from principal Murray Lucas. ‘‘I thought I got in trouble.’’ But in fact Mr Lucas was rapt over their win, she says.
Trish and her fellow IT students Aidan Shilling, 17, and Luke Davia, 17, built an interactive website for their entry, warning of the dangers of drink and drug driving.
Luke had built a website before so was in charge of deciding code, while Aidan did much of the writing and made an infographic and Trish built an animation from scratch.
They used resources and statistics from the NZ Transport Agency, who ran the ‘‘ Safer Journeys for Teens’’ competition.
Drug driving interested the team because there isn’t much information on it, Luke says.
The project took all term, but the effort was worthwhile – the website beat hundreds of entries.
The school will spend its $10,000 prize on new IT equipment like iPads, the three students have $500 each to spend on themselves.
See www.education.nzta.govt.nz.