EIT Students Hammer Home

September 20, 2010

EIT carpentry students went at it hammer and tong demonstrating their newly-acquired building skills in a recent fundraiser run by Mitre10 Mega Napier for the Hawke’s Bay Plunket Society.

It was the second time EIT has taken part in the weekend event – the forth organised by the hardware giant.

Carpentry Apprenticeship Coordinator Shane Sigglekow headed a team of four Certificate in Carpentry Level 3 students with the help of carpentry tutors Steve Spooner, Tom Hay and Kris Harrison who each spent a few hours on site. They went up against five building companies to each construct a playhouse.

EIT design technology (CAD) students designed six sets of plans of which one was chosen. The winning team’s plan was a fun activity based castle design.

On the day Shane had eight students involved. At different times during the day, students not busy with the EIT build, lent a hand to other builders, resulting in an EIT student assisting with each of the individual playhouse builds.

Shane said, “This is a great result as it was my goal to lift EIT’s profile as a tertiary educator offering training for both pre-trade Carpentry and Carpentry building apprenticeships.”

Finishing two hours before deadline, the students then helped out other builders where needed to complete their construction.

The six playhouses were auctioned off the following day, with the EIT team’s effort going under the hammer for $1000, which was the 3rd highest bid of the day. The EIT team’s efforts were even further rewarded by being judged the best constructed, winning the Builders Choice award.

This was for the attention to detail and the consideration of child safety in the finishing.

The event raised more than $10,000 towards a new Plunket support centre in Napier.

Shane is very happy with the weekend’s results and is looking forward to helping out next year.

“While only in the planning stage at present we may look at getting EIT more involved by building two playhouses next year with the Trade Skills students building one as well.”