On the second day of the Sec 2 Camp, half of the class visited Bishan Park for orienteering. The camp instructors gave us a worksheet featuring several iconic locations in Bishan park, and respective questions about the locations, such as the reason for it being constructed, common animals that could be spotted around it, and its use or message that it wanted to share, etc.

Since I live close to Bishan park and visit it often, my group (which consisted of me, Amos, Ryan, Elliot, and Frank) quickly scouted out the various different locations on the worksheet and answered the questions efficiently. We even had time to purchase snacks and explore the park by ourselves. Soon, we met up at the exercise corner of Bishan park and had a snack break before continuing into the next activity, which was team bonding exercises. My half of the class managed to participate in two activities — a large skipping rope exercise and a cup stacking activity. For the first activity, two students were in charge of spinning the large rope around and around while the students attempted to jump over the rope first individually, then in pairs, and finally as a large group. The next activity was stacking cups in a specific order using a contraption that expanded when pulled and contracted when released, with 5 strings attached to it. We broke into two mini groups and got to work on planning and coordinating ourselves on our strategy to stack the cups, and after several intense minutes, we managed to finish under the time limit. When this activity concluded, we then walked back to our school from the park to have our lunch, right before the next activity—gladiators—started. We were tasked to construct a device that would be able to propel a tennis ball as far as possible, only armed with rope, long sticks, elastic bands, and a bucket. Sadly, my team was rather unsuccessful in constructing a functioning catapult due to our lack of knowledge in tying knots, but the other group in our half, with the help of the scout Yong Kang and the maths prodigy Kiron on their side, managed to create a functional catapult that shot the ball an impressive distance, dubbing 2-3 as the winner of that activity.

The final activity of the day was an outdoor cooking experience, where we experienced cooking in the great outdoors (if by outdoors you mean a sheltered area of the track next to the field). Students were divided into groups of 2 and 3, and each group was handed a pack of instant bee hoon, two leaves of a vegetable, and an egg. I feel quite lucky that we were already given lunch as the portion was rather meagre for children our age. Anyhow, we were given small cooking boxes that had a flammable solid fuel, which was subsequently lit to produce heat for cooking. We then cooked our meals, which although tasted rather bland, reminded me that experiencing the cooking process was the most important part of this activity. And there you have it, the activities that I experienced on day 2 of the rugged outdoor camp.

My favourite activity of the second day is by far the orienteering, as I got to discover parts of my neighbourhood park that I had never paid close attention to before, learn more about the environment, and appreciate it differently the next time I visit the park. It also allowed me to enjoy the nature of the park in the morning and provided a new experience from always sitting in a stuffy classroom, and having my friends by my side only heightened the experience.

From that day, I learned the importance of teamwork. All the activities that I experienced required the members to work together to achieve a common goal, such as working together to build the catapult or cook the food, and this is an important virtue that will aid us throughout the rest of our lives.

Thus, I had a thoroughly enjoyable time during the second day of camp as not only did I learn and experience new things that I had never experienced before, but I also about the importance of teamwork. I hope that others found this day as exciting and enriching as I did.