About: Matt

Website: http://newriveracademy.org
Profile: Matt Smink grew up in Pennsylvania where he discovered whitewater on the Youghiogheny river. He earned his bachelor degree from Edinboro Pennsylvania where he studied Applied Media arts and History. Matt went on to work a variety of whitewater and outdoor jobs in the past ten years which included Raft Guiding, Video Boating, Ridgerunning on the Appalachian Trail, Ski Patrolling in the mountains of Utah and being a wilderness river ranger for the forest service on the Middle Fork and Main Salmon Rivers of Idaho. Matt returned to west virginia to work as a videographer and web developer with WELD in Fayetteville, WV. He joined the team at New River Academy in 2009 as the Media Specialist/ Marketing Director, as well as the Social Studies Teacher. Matt is now the Director of New River Academy, he has committed himself recruiting new talented students and staff, as well as organizing and running New River Academies international adventures!

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Young Locals at The Nile Special In Uganda

Sunday, March 6th, 2011

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An Epic Safari With the Kayak School in Uganda

Saturday, March 5th, 2011

What a long strange trip its been…. New River Academy Students have finally returned to “civilization” after almost a week of safari in Queen Elizabeth National Park and Lake Mburo Park in Uganda. The road was long, the weather hot, and the scenery spectacular!

We started our trip to Lake Mburo where we camped beside a pristine lake with hippos and warthogs roaming freely near our camp. We had our award ceremony followed by a late lakeside dinner, which was by far the best meal we have enjoyed since the beginning of our Uganda Journey. Late at night we could hear the unfamiliar sounds of hippos grunting and tromping around near camp. This was enough to keep everyone inside their tents until daybreak. At dawn we set out on a sunrise game drive. Touring through Lake Mburo students took pictures of zebras, monkeys, warthogs, waterbacks, Impalas, and water bufalo. Not to mention the abundant species of birds flying overhead. After the game drive, we had a delicious lakeside breakfast and moved our camp to Queen Elizabeth National Park.

In Queen Elizabeth we set our camp on top of a high plateau overlooking the Great Rift Valley, a channel connecting two lakes formed by a tectonic plate shift many, many moons ago. Our first night we had a thunderstorm move past our camp with an amazing display of natural fireworks. Tino, Kai Wen, Hunt Jennings, and myself took the opportunity to photograph the lightning as it moved harmlessly past our camp. The next morning we set out on another sunrise game drive through the park. New River Academy photo and video students had a field day capturing the majestic African wildlife that was all around us. We came upon an entire herd of elephants crossing the road, the male trumpeted loudly at our bus to let us know that this was his family and we where expected to keep our distance. This display was more than enough to send Zoe, Kalob, Kai Wen, Wayne, and me scampering back into the safety of our bus. Lorenzo climbed to the roof of the bus with Alex, Errik, Jessica, Taylor, Haley, and Nick to shoot the herd of elephants from a perfect vantage point.

Our trip moved on to find a male lion laying out in the sun with his beautiful lioness, resting after a delicious Impala feast. The blood covered Hyenas and vultures weren’t far off cleaning up the rest of the carcass. We returned to camp, ate our lunch and departed for a boat ride along the channel formed by the Great Rift Valley. This was by far the jewel of our adventure! It was a scene straight out of National Geographic, or Planet Earth. Droves of hippos water buffalos, elephants, crocodiles, and an assortment of birds were competing with each other for space next to the water. New River Academy students were there to capture the action. Most of the students took to the roof of the boat to record the bountiful wildlife surrounding them. Errik even took the opportunity to perform some classic early 90′s rap for the video camera.

After the boat cruise, students returned to camp and shared their stories and pictures well into the evening. The next morning we took a long drive back to the city. It was a bit longer than expected since our drivers ran out of gas. This didn’t affect our moral at all since students took to climbing mango trees and holding international wrestling matches with Coach Lorenzo. BTW. Hunt can still pin Lorenzo in a fair match, be sure to remind Lorenzo next time you see him.

Now the school is on its way to the Hairy Lemon island for a Nile Special surf session, and I have stayed behind to pick up Amy Hill from Entebbe so she can share in our island experience. Only 8 days left! Then your children will be home for spring break.

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Welcome to Uganda and the Hairy Lemon on the Nile River

Friday, March 4th, 2011

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New River Academy Academic Report – Physics | Harnessing Sun Power

Saturday, February 5th, 2011

A new year and a new semester at NRA means a new physics students, Kalob Grady, and a new teacher, Chris Smith. For an exciting start to the class, our first thing to do was set up a solar panel powering system on the island. Currently the island has no electricity besides a few small panels used strictly in the cabins, so this project was a big deal for not just our class but the whole school. Unfortunately, this was no easy task. Our first obstacle was getting the panel system here. Our new teacher searched day and night to find a usable system that we could buy in the town of Jinja, which is roughly a two hour drive from our cozy island home. While in town, the students wasted time on the Internet, while our fearless teacher conquered mobs of people to pick up our panel. When seeing the system for the first time, all the students received a quick shock to the immense size of the panel and electronics that came with it. It turns out you can’t just buy a panel and expect to receive some sun power. The solar panel itself is 4×3 Ft. along with a PWM Solar Charge Converter, a DC to AC Power Inverter, and a Luminous Car Battery, which was the heaviest thing of all. The following day we began construction, starting with reading instruction sheet after instruction sheet to get a general idea of what we were about to undertake.

We started off by setting the solar panel by itself upon four placed bricks and connecting our 14 meter power cord. The cord consisted of a positive and negatively charged wires and a grounding wire. After connecting the wires correctly and grounding the third wire we began cutting the wire into one 11 meter section and three 1 meter sections to split the power from device to device. The basic idea is, sun hits panel and creates electricity, electricity flows from panel to charge converter, the power is then converted into the car battery, then the power flows from the battery to the DC AC converter where it can be used to power our computers, cameras, ipods, etc. The most important item is the charge converter, this piece of equipment makes sure our battery stays charged, doesn’t overcharge, and basically controls the entire system. After getting the wire cut into sections, we connected our wires into the first two copper slots of the converter. After the wires are secured we connect the next wire piece from the converter into the battery. This way all power is moved directly from the panel into the battery where it will gather a charge. The last piece of wire is then placed in the last section of the converter and connected to the DC AC inverter. So basically the power is put into the battery then relayed back through the converter and into the power inverter where it is turned from DC power, which we cannot use, into AC power, which is ours to spread. All there was to do now was wait for the sun, which was a while seeing how it was completely dark by the time the system was finished.

The following day wasn’t much better, being filled with scattered showers and overcast skies, needless to say, we still had no power. Thankfully this morning we awoke to sunlight and heat and by the time lunch came around we had sufficient power to begin charging our electronics, which by this time were all deceased. Amazing the things the sun can do these days, and with a group of teenagers in Internet withdrawal, the sun may be the most important thing in the world.

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New River Academy Has Finally Arrived

Saturday, January 29th, 2011

Wow! It has been a long, tumultuous, journey filled with cancellations, redirections, and delays. But almost all of New River Academy has arrived in Entebbe. With the exceptions of Kira and Hayley, who are relaxing on their layover in Brussels. Jessica is finishing up her examinations in Canada and will join us in February.

Kai Wen and the students are exhausted and hungry after the long flight and we hope to get them to a comfy bed with some food soon. We aren’t out of the woods yet, we still have to load all of our kayaks and gear onto our safari vehicle and drive to our dormitory beds at the hostel.

Tomorrow morning we will be up for breakfast and off again to the kayak school’s first whitewater destination, the Hairy Lemon. I will stay behind to pick up Hayley and Kira tomorrow and to deal with any delayed luggage, while the kayak school rendezvous with Chris Smith, Tino Specht, and Lorenzo Andrade Astorga for an evening session on the Nile Special.

Chris Smith has offered to handle all the orientation on the island and the students will soon be relaxing on a secluded whitewater paradise. After I finish up a few loose ends I will be joining them along with Kira and Hayley.

Expect to hear from your children within the next two hours we will be sharing a number of the mobile cards in order to assure that all students have an opportunity to let you know that they are all right.

By the way… Congratulations! The hard part is over.

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Hairy Lemon Report

Tuesday, January 18th, 2011

The New River Academy Prep team is on the Hairy Lemon Island and we have begun setting up our communication plan. We can successfully upload photos, use Facebook, blog, and chat. But sadly no skype calls or video uploads from here. We plan to have a have a generator in place to charge our computers, hopefully around four at a time. With a little mobile card we can get enough service at the top of the hill to connect. Energy will be a precious commodity while on the island, and students will have to maintain a strict discipline of energy management. By doing so, they will enjoy the opportunity of sharing their experience with their friends and family, instead of simply vanishing into the Dark Continent.

It is a pretty amazing opportunity to be able to have these services considering what it takes to get here. The island is a virtual culture bubble of kayakers from all over the world. You must travel miles along a dirt road before coming to the waters edge where you must ring a “gong” to signal the ferryman. Then you will hitch your ride into the center of some of the world’s best big wave surfing. The waves are tall fast and powerful, big enough for you to scream and wet yourself before bouncing into the trough for a huge aerial bounce. The club wave comes in for a morning sess. and the Nile Special is prime in the evening, leaving plenty of time for school in between. The meals are delicious home cooked buffet style cuisine.

I think you are going to like it here….

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New River Academy Logistics Trip Report

Monday, January 17th, 2011

Its been a week since Chris Smith and Myself have arrived in Uganda, we haven’t had a moment relax since we landed. After a short delay of our luggage, we were able to leave Kampala and head East to Jinja and the Hairy Lemon.

Kampala is a crazy city; crowded frantic and devoid of all traffic laws, its enough to make your head spin. We were using the Boda Boda taxis to get around, cheap and dangerous but a whole lot of fun. Needless to say this mode of transport will be off-limits to our students. I met with our safari guides and secured airport transportation to our schools first location the Hairy Lemon.

The Hairy Lemon is a spectacular secluded island resort, located right next to The Nile Special and Club Wave. These features are two of the greates play features in the world and they are all ours for about a month. With the help of our freestyle coach; Tino Specht and our celebrity guest coach Stephen Wright, New River Academy students will see a tremendous improvement on their freestyle skills. The island also provides three buffet style meals and is a perfect relaxing location to have a full day of school. Our host Paul Ferguson is a laid back South African, and has gone out of his way to make sure our school has everything we need for the duration of our stay.

We traveled then into Jinja to secure shuttle vehicles and research are communication options. Then we finalized our reservation at Eden Rock which will give us access to the Day 1 section of the White Nile River. Sorry no whitewater pics yet, but I hope to remedy that soon.

Untill next time, this is your NRA point team signing off…

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Kayak School Academic Report | Photography

Tuesday, April 27th, 2010

The students in my photography began their final assignment- a comprehensive photo essay of their New River Academy experience. What is a photo essay you ask? Well it is story told through a collection of images and words. The students have the option of displaying their photos/text combination in what ever way they choose. They can write a story with images spaced throughout the text, they can use mostly images with captions, they can put text right on the image itself, or use any combination of these techniques.

They only stipulation is that this essay must begin with the students’ first week of school. This is a daunting task as the students now have amassed such a tremendous amount of experiences throughout their NRA adventure. The process of selecting their best images to tell this story will be a challenge in and of itself.

I am excited to see what our photo team manages to come up with, this project is sure to help solidify a life long keepsake of our students’ experience with the New River Academy.

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New River Academy’s Patagonia Adventure | Futaleufu is Big

Sunday, March 14th, 2010

New River Academy takes their kayak school adventures to there southernmost reaches: Futaleufu. Chiles big water paradise in Patagonia offers the most spectacular scenery and unforgettable whitewater. The high school students and Gap year students will get to experience this whitewater gem for themselves this spring.

If you want to know what it is all about you should join us for the Gap year in Patagonia. The Futaleufu is in danger of being damned and lost forever. So get down there and show your love for free flowing rivers.! Patagonia Sin Represas!
You can apply now its easy!