Harrow College Sports students have taken part in a recruitment exercise, hosted by an army outreach recruitment team.
The students took part in the day-long challenge at the college’s Harrow Weald campus on Monday 20 April.
Students studying sports courses, aged 16-18 were set a series of group challenges which tested their fitness, strategic thinking, team work and communication skills.
The outdoor tasks, each with a time limit, included a Sudoku-themed tyre challenge where students were required to move numbered tyres into sequence so each row added up to the same total and a challenge to connect three stationary bases with wooden planks of different length.
Students were also set a blindfold task, where they had to travel from one end of a course to another, avoiding obstacles along the way, guided only by the vocal instructions of their teammates.
They also took part in a counter-balance test, which challenged them to move from one point to another using wooden planks and tested their awareness of weight balance to support one another.
The event was organised by Harrow College in association with the army’s outreach recruitment team who work with colleges around London.
The sessions are a great opportunity to give sports students an alternative practical experience and provide an insight into army life in the presence of army personnel.
Sergeant Rickard, team leader from the army outreach team, said: “These sessions challenge students to think outside of the box. The tasks are designed to call on a number of skills including working as a team, problem solving, mathematics, engineering and more. As well as the sports side, these events allow us to give students an insight into army life with the opportunity to speak to actual army staff.”
Shelley Mitchinson, sports lecturer at Harrow College, who coordinated the event, added: “Today has been a great success. Students did something unique and quite different from their usual course activities, which not only supported their studies but also allowed them to interact with staff from a specific profession and to ask questions.”