WOODWORK, Hong Kong
The Discovery Week Woodwork course is designed to introduce students to some basic concepts in woodworking and to give them familiarity with a number of hand tools and power tools. The skills they acquire can be very useful throughout their lives, especially if they are considering futures in the science, engineering or design fields. We focus particularly on safety and these procedures also have lifetime relevance.
Each participant is given a plain plank of wood and, over the course of three days, transforms this into an attractive and useful bookshelf. Although we use a standardised construction method, design features are limited only by a student’s imagination and the nature of the material. Size and shape can be customised to fit a specific location in the student’s home and many of our graduates have told me that they are still using the bookshelf long after finishing their university years. "Woodwork allows students to safely gain hands-on experience with power tools and traditional woodworking techniques, under the supervision of experienced mentors. We were set the task of designing and building a wooden bookshelf from scratch which, while relatively simple on paper, pushed us out of our academic comfort zones and into a world of sawdust, blisters and creativity. "The diversity of our final products is a testament to the artistic individualism of our group. Woodwork allowed us to take a simple concept (that of a bookshelf, consisting of bookends, a back, and a base), and apply our personalities to it. Our shelves came out curved, polygonal, abstract, brightly-coloured and conservative. Not one is like another; each has its own charms, and its own unique history. Several students even chose to use specialised techniques such as routing to create enhancing surface detail. Many of us were also motivated to learn about different forms of joinery and finishes, and choosing the most appropriate turned out to be a fun, engaging process. "The Woodwork Discovery Week trip left us with more than just a shelf. We came back to school with a fresh angle on the world. It built our confidence in our creative skills, and gave us a new appreciation for the work involved in even the most mundane things. At a time when industry has largely automated the manufacturing process, it was fantastic to get down and dirty, coming back to the roots of such an ancient profession." - Elaine Wah, GSIS alumna, who took Woodwork when she was in Year 11. |