Even if you think it’s a stupid question, it should be asked, and even if you think it’s a crazy idea, it should be pitched.
You just never know where it might lead.
Nothing was off the table for six teams of Year 7 students who pitched the concepts they’d cooked up during a three-day intensive program with Crazy Ideas College to their peers and Greater Shepparton Secondary College’s partners last week.
From ‘Deskobots’ to help kids learn, to self-cleaning sanitary products that restore dignity to the disadvantaged, to a gun that fires seeds for reforestation, there was a big focus on education and environmental repair and recovery.
Technologically minded students considered QR marketing to bring a ‘Farmer’s Code’ to life on produce packaging, which would lead the scanner through to videos showcasing the product’s journey from farm to plate.
Another team delivered an exciting ‘plant-based’ app game, not plant-based in the traditional sense of being made with plant products, but to help people identify and learn about flora in their area and how best to care for it.
One more dreamed of a community where consumers could refill reusable aluminium bottles with liquid products, such as juice and milk, at supermarkets to slash plastic waste.
Crazy Ideas College co-director Zoe Burrows said the college encouraged unorthodox thinking in students.
“It’s easier to get somewhere new and interesting when you start there,” she said.
Her team’s mission is to equip, connect and unleash kids to “do crazy good”.
Partners at the event who provided feedback and encouragement to the youth innovators included Headspace representatives, retired fruit grower and GV Environment Group member John Pettigrew, the Department of Education’s Kerri Symes and Shepparton police Leading Senior Constable Leigh Johnson.