2025 Ending with a Christmas Parade

We have finished the school year and are currently on our break for the end of the year - there will be new material that will be appearing in 2026 and the class of students will be returning in February,

Auroa Primary School participated in the 2025 Opunake Christmas Parade.   For this community event we used a number of items of technology to help with the presentation of our school float.  We had a theme of 'Dr Seuss's the Lorax'.   

Our large HP Latex 335 Printer was used to create the large posters that anchored the ends of the float.  Although it is a little hard to see from the photographs these signs at the end of the truck measures 1.5m across and were 2m high.  They were printed as a vinyl print and then backed onto wooden framing to be hung for the display.  You can see further examples of how we have used this machine here.

We used hay bales to create the base for the design, which were then covered in plastic clothes (table cloths from a local dollar store).   We then used the HP Latex 335 Printer to print the scenery which was then applied as a latex sticker and stuck to the base and held in place by pins.

This allowed us to cover the entire base of the flat bed of the truck which was the basis for the parade float.  The scenery was typical Dr Seuss imagery as shown in the photograph on the left.

The students in costume then sat on the float for the parade, using this as the base.

We also used the school laser cutter to produce this sign.   This sign was printed as four individual laser cuts and then each was produced (being 1m by 30cm each in size on 5mm MDF).  The four signs were then put onto the pole that was the base of the design.

Vincit qui se vincit.  This site is undergoing some renovations in the background and we are also adapting some of the content and its presentation.  

This will change some of the material and format and will be updated shortly - thank you for your visit, it is very much appreciated.

The images that are shown here were created using an AI image maker combing the Lorax themed character and students of Auroa School.

The image was then put out via the HP Latex 335 Printer and printed on a large scale that was possible.  This was 1.5m across and was 2.5m long which was the biggest possible print that was able to use the machine before the quality of the print was going to start to loose clarity.

As mentioned we are here on the Christmas Break and while we have students returning in February we have a number of project related work, including a range of prints from this year still to publish that we will be doing so on this blog.

HP Latex 335

 

We have posted about the HP Latex 335 printer previously before on this blog.   When we have a large school event, such as our upcoming 2025 School Market Day we typically have a number of games and events that need signage.

This is where the large HP Latex 335 printer can come into its own.  It allows us to customise and print large scale signs and posters for each event, such as the rules for a 'fair' game or signage to advertise the prices and location of a particular part of the school.

We have previously detailed this machine on our blog where you can see how we used it for the last Market Day in 2023, or where it was used to create and publish the posters advertising School events such as the school Stepmaster competition.

The media produced by this machine shown in the photograph is 500mm wide and 1000mm long, although this can be longer and in addition it is possible to combine large pictures together in a sequence to create a bigger image (as we have done in the past for backdrops for our school production.

School Events: Step Master Competition

 

As we've mentioned, and detailed previously on this blog, we tend to try and combine some of the very special and popular technology at our school with school events.

This term, in a few weeks we are holding our Step Master Battle Competition.   This involves the student project the making of the Step Master Machine and was live streamed on youtube last year.

To encourage the students for the competition for this year we have been currently holding out qualifying.  Any student at our school is free to enter, they enter and have a recorded score by a school (student) official.  This allows the students to have a system by which they can be ranked and then ordered for the live finals.   There is a bit of pressure associated with this, as students who don't manage to score as highly as they would like can struggle to make the tournament grade however, generally this also allows the top students to qualify through.

The poster for the competition was printed on our HP Latex 335 Printer and the poster and score sheet measures 1.4m by 2m.     

We will be streaming the finals of this competition again this year, with our multi camera options and will post details about this event on this blog prior to it happening.

Using the Vinyl Printer/Sticker Machine: School Market Day 2023

We have addressed the fact that our school has a number of significant items that we are able to use for our students and school events.

Two of these items were used significantly for our 2023 School Market Day, being the HP Latex 335 Printer and the Versa Studio Sign maker Machine.

The larger vinyl prints were made on the HP an example is shown left where the students documented the innovation process and took photographs at each stage of their learning.  They were able to print this poster off and display their learning as part of the market day experience.  This helped shared the learning and creative process with members of the community who came to view the market day.   These prints were extremely large.

The Versa machine was able to produce much smaller prints in a vinyl sticker format that the students used for the packaging of their products.  When combined with the Laser Cutter designing MDF cuts to back the work onto it produced a ready made stand for the display of the work.

The students were able to independently produce the prints using Pic Collage and then convert them for printing using their individual iPads.

Each of the students from the classroom was able to create a unique presentation (as shown left) another bonus was that as it was vinyl the dye used to stain the MDF could be applied after the sticker had been put in place.  This just required the sticker to be wiped down if any dye had moved onto the design.

Another use of the HP Printer was to work in conjunction with some of the Gala games that were run by out senior students at school.   These traditional games had an ideal opportunity to use technology to aide in their creation and advertising and explain the rules of the games.    We had previously contacted some local real estate agents to ask for signs that they did not use and also had sourced some corrugated cardboard for the purpose.  This turned out to be extremely important as it allowed us to have signs that could survive if the weather was slightly inclement - which is was on the night.

It also meant the signs were robust enough to survive some significant wind gusts (which again occurred on the night).   This allowed us to display the events and provide some eye catching graphics.

We were also able to produce the material for specific games that was more durable than would have been possible otherwise.   An example is the golf map shown with this photograph.   This was the target for a game involving throwing ping pong balls at each of the holes with a small prize for being successful.  As it was printed on vinyl it allowed the game to be played numerous times without concern that the game board would be damaged by the competition.

The HP Latex Printer allowed us to print the game board as a single sheet - although it had significant dimensions.