With the sun shining, and temperatures at their peak in Oxford this week, it has been the perfect opportunity for students to make the most of the gardens at Yarnton for both academic and social purposes.

A highlight for students this week was an Enterprise and Team Building Masterclass, which built on the Business and Enterprise Programme taught by Hussein Shokri at Yarnton Manor.  Hussein even managed to teach outside this week!

The activity was an Egg Drop Challenge…which is is EGG-actly how it sounds!

Students were divided into teams to play the Egg Drop game, and were given a selection of materials. The goal was to design and build a structure that will prevent a raw egg from breaking from a high drop.

Each team had one raw egg, 40 straws, duck tape, paper plates and poster paper, and the students then had 15 minutes to work together to construct the best protecting structure they could using only these materials and their brains.

Once the 15 minutes were up, it was drop time! A nominated team member from each team went upstairs to the first floor window of the manor to drop the egg and hope for the best.

It was a tense moment, but also a lot of fun to see eggs being thrown down and, for some, cracking all over the ground on landing. (Don’t worry, we protected the ground with a plastic bag!).

After all of the structures were dropped, other team members had to open them up to figure out which eggs had remained intact. The winning team had to have used the least amount of straws. Congratulations to Alfie from the UK, Nicolas from Norway, Fillipo from Italy , Rebecca from Italy, and Nicolas from Honduras,  for building the most protective structure!

The goal of this team building activity was to build chemistry, teamwork, and creative thinking, and we can certainly say that this goal was achieved!

To top it all off, a surprise visit from the local Ice Cream Van bought even more delight for the students, who enjoyed a delicious and well deserved ice cream after a long day of brain power in the heat!