Latest news with #TeRangihīroaCollege
Otago Daily Times
5 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Otago Daily Times
Residential hall recreated in the virtual world Residential hall recreated in the virtual world
Forget couch fires in Castle St. University of Otago Te Rangihīroa College students have now progressed to setting neighbouring student flats on fire and blowing up parked cars with TNT — but only in the virtual world. College assistant warden George Jackson has created an online Minecraft version of Te Rangihīroa College, where its residents can get to know each other better by building structures, tearing them down, and then rebuilding new ones. "Normally on Minecraft, you can destroy everything, but I've put protections on the server so that they can't break the college. "They can light fires and they can make explosions outside the building ... but it won't do anything to the building. "It's flame-proof, explosion-proof. It's unbreakable. "And all they can do inside the building is walk around, open doors, press buttons, and talk to each other." Mr Jackson said the extremely detailed virtual world had all 450 student rooms, bathrooms, the dining hall and activity areas, and gave residents the ability to interact in a safe place. "I went to a hall in my first year and I was just not the type that wanted to go out drinking or do sports or other activities. "That was my choice, but what I found was that a lot of the activities that halls ran were geared towards extroverts. "Obviously, I'd just play games. That was how I socialised. I've got friends from Australia that I've known for longer than people I was at high school with, and I'm still really close with them today. "I met them all through video games." Now that he was working in a hall of residence, he was able to see there were many other students who were the same as he was. "They don't want to go out drinking or do sports and stuff, but they still want to meet people, and I think the Minecraft server is a great way of doing that. "I've seen students actually meet other students in the building in real life, after making friendships in the Minecraft server." He said a major attraction of the game was that students could be whomever they wanted to be in the virtual world. "I think a lot of people identify with their online selves because maybe they aren't that confident in who they are as a person, and when you are playing Minecraft you're completely anonymous, so you really can be whatever you want to be. "You can slowly drip-feed parts of your personality that you're comfortable with — sort of test the water with people — and then see what type of people they are and see if they'd be someone that you'd like to be friends with in the real world." It was proving very popular with residents at the college, he said. The project had taken him a couple of months to get up and running, and he was still developing it. Eventually he hoped to develop the game enough so that the residents could decorate and furnish their rooms. "But I can't do that just yet because I need to figure out a way to make them be able to build in their rooms without breaking the entire building." He believed it would also serve as a historic record of resident activity in the college. "Next year, and in future years, the new residents will be able to jump on and see what they got up to last year and keep that going for as long as we really want it to — to see what they've built and what they've destroyed."
Otago Daily Times
21-07-2025
- Business
- Otago Daily Times
Residential college wins construction award
University of Otago organisational delivery senior project manager Kirsten Eichstaedt and capital works head Wes Jenkins with this year's Project Management Institute of New Zealand Aotearoa Construction Project of the Year awards for construction management of Te Rangihīroa College. PHOTO: GERARD O'BRIEN Te Rangihīroa College has become more than just a place to sleep for University of Otago students. It is now a multi-award-winning home away from home. The university's first new purpose-built residential college in over 50 years has picked up another major award — this year's Aotearoa Construction Project of the Year, at the Project Management Institute of New Zealand (PMINZ) awards. PMINZ president Carol Speirs said the winners exemplified the very best of project delivery in New Zealand. "They represent the talent, innovation, and resilience driving progress across the country — from digital transformation to infrastructure and sustainability." University of Otago property and campus development director Tanya Syddall said the award was in recognition of the construction project's outstanding project management and leadership team. She was proud of the project, which had become an "example" for others in the construction industry. "It's an amazing space for our tauira/students and has become a major feature on the Dunedin campus and a very popular choice for those coming to study at Otago." The facilities include 450 bedrooms, flexible study spaces, a large student lounge, a movie room, a sound-proof music room, a media room equipped for gaming and a courtyard with a half basketball court. Eight of the rooms also have a remote vibrating unit, which helps hearing-impaired students to wake up if a fire alarm is activated. Last year, Te Rangihīroa College won three other industry awards, including an Excellence Award in the Multi-Unit Residential Property category at the Property Industry Awards. The 7730sqm, seven-floor facility was designed by Jasmax architects and constructed by Southbase Construction. Te Rangihīroa was the name of an Otago alumni (Sir Peter Buck), who was the first Māori medical graduate from a New Zealand university, in 1904. Ngāti Mutunga, the iwi of Te Rangihīroa, gifted the name to the university in 2013.
RNZ News
12-06-2025
- General
- RNZ News
Otago University hall stops serving special dietary requirement food after label mishap
Otago University is not serving any special dietary requirement food to live-in students while an investigation is underway. Photo: RNZ / Nate McKinnon Caterers providing meals for live-in students at an Otago University hall have stopped serving food to those with special dietary requirements while an investigation is carried out. The university said on 6 June a Te Rangihīroa College resident with an egg allergy ate a slice of cake at lunchtime which was incorrectly labelled as not containing eggs. It said it had brought in an independent consultant and the Ministry of Primary Industries was investigating its procedures around managing food allergies. RNZ has seen a message addressed to hall residents via social media that advised those with allergens could no longer be catered for by the hall for an unknown period of time. The message said they would instead need to have their breakfast, lunch and dinner meals in the nearby St Margaret's College, and a van had been scheduled to take students there during meal times. Te Rangihīroa College is one of 11 residential colleges managed by the university, while St Margaret's College is one of four university-affiliated colleges, governed independently. Otago University acting chief operating officer Jared Hayes confirmed Te Rangihīroa was not preparing or serving any special dietary requirement food while the university worked through what had happened. "St Margaret's is an independent college and has helpfully agreed to provide our special dietary students with food until the situation has been resolved. There was a van provided to help students get to St Margaret's," he said. "They had breakfast at St Margaret's, but individually wrapped meals are now being brought into Te Rangihīroa to reduce the impact on students." Hayes said the arrangement would last "as long as is necessary". Students with special dietary needs at Te Rangihīroa make up about 30 of the 450 residents. Hayes said the university accepted blame for the incident. "It is very disappointing and regrettable that this incident has occurred. We have policies and processes in place to prevent this," he said. "This was an unfortunate incident of human error. There was an error in declaring the ingredients in a food item. "College and University leadership met with the student to discuss the situation and their wellbeing. We remain in close contact with them and are continuing to provide support." A Te Rangihīroa resident told RNZ students with the special dietary requirements were initially being served food after the incident, but those students would have to wait around an hour longer than others. Hayes said arrangements had to be made at short notice to feed those students while the university got a full understanding of the situation. Some students had expressed concern about the situation, which the university understood, he said. "An email has been sent to all affected students offering assistance to apply for special consideration for exams if they believe this is necessary," he said. Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
