Year 12 students have been getting their hands dirty turning a rusted-out old car into a polished centrepiece for their school’s production of Grease.
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It has been up to the 26 Emmanuel College VCAL students to work out the steps needed to get the car into shape, including customising it for the musical and working within a budget.
Students Tom Melican and Nick Kelly took the initiative to track down and source the car through an online trading group.
Mr Melican said the best thing about the project was getting out of the classroom.
“We're all into mechanics and agriculture and that sort of thing, so to get a car that we have to do up and take the motor out of, it's a good project for us,” he said.
“There's a lot of people in the class with skills in mechanics – not all of us – but a lot of us are interested in it."
He said he normally wouldn’t get involved in the school’s theatre production, and working on a car was not something he would expect to do at school.
Students posted a video online about their progress, showing how they had already removed parts of the engine and stripped other elements out.
In order to get the car looking like the bright red model in the iconic film, two classes will spend time fixing the upholstery, re-chroming parts, installing LED lights and organising a spray paint job.
Aside from the hands-on work, they also needed to come up with a design and potentially secure sponsorship for the spray paint job.
“The VCAL class is an applied learning class so we like to do stuff rather than research and study,” teacher Ben Woonton said.
“It was just the perfect opportunity with the school doing the production.”
Mr Woonton said the students were doing well taking on the big project.
“I’ve made it very clear to the kids that it is up to them to ring business owners and experts to ask for advice – like ‘what do we do here?’ or ‘we’re thinking about that’,” he said.
“That’s all part of the process.”
He said personal development and learning life skills were inherent in the project, and the students improved each week.
Teacher Paul Aberline said the project was being driven by the students.
“At the moment they’re very excited to be doing one key project for the school,” he said.
“They’re all getting involved in it.”
The project needs to be finished within 11 weeks for the August premiere of Grease at the Lighthouse Theatre.
