Thorsten Pascoe

Operation: Don't Freeze To Death 🥶📦

So, Dad and I officially scored the jackpot today. I went around the back loading dock of The Good Guys and found an absolute monster of a box. It used to hold one of those massive single door Hisense fridges. It’s practically a tiny house in cardboard terms.

Thanks Good Guys!

I’ve spent the afternoon spray-painting a huge graffiti tag on the side in pink and lime green so it looks sick, but while I was waiting for the paint to dry (and airing it out so the fumes don't choke me out later), I actually looked at the edge of the cardboard.

Turns out, this thing isn't just normal paper. It’s like a high-tech survival blanket disguised as trash.

Here is why this specific box is going to save my life when the temperature hits 8 degrees at 3AM on Friday:

The Cardboard "Sandwich": If you look at the edge where it’s cut, it’s not solid. It has a flat sheet on the outside, a flat sheet on the inside, and this crazy wavy zigzag paper in the middle. Those little wavy gaps trap tiny pockets of air. Because the air can't move around, it acts like a shield that stops the freezing wind from getting to me.

Double-Wall Power: Because it’s from The Good Guys and had to protect a heavy fridge, it’s "double-wall" cardboard. That means it has two layers of those wavy air pockets stacked together. It’s super thick and hard to bend.

The Concrete Killer: The worst part about sleeping on the ground isn't the air, it’s the deck. The deck is like a vampire that literally sucks the heat straight out of your body. So, I didn't just leave the box as a square—I stomped a couple of extra appliance boxes completely flat to use as a mattress. I’m putting three layers of cardboard including an old yoga mat I saved from last year between my sleeping bag and the ground.

I've got my hoodie / oodie, my beanie sorted, and my fridge-box mansion ready to go. Wish me luck, it's going to be freezing out here!

What would I create to help the homeless?

I would use an app to tackle this, like "Google Maps, but for survival” cause everyone has a phone and data.

Here is the problem right now: a lot of people who are couch-surfing or sleeping on the streets actually have smartphones, but finding help is a total mess. If a teenager gets kicked out of home at 8:00 PM, they have to scroll through broken websites or call random numbers just to find out if a shelter has a free bed, or where they can get a hot meal. Half the time, they walk all the way across the city only to find out the shelter is already full.

Here’s how my app would work:

1. The "Live Dashboard" for Shelters

Imagine a simple app where every youth shelter, soup kitchen, café, bakery and free laundry service in your city has a quick login. Before they go home for the night, the shelter workers tap a button that updates their status:

🟢 Green: 3 beds free tonight.

🔴 Red: At 100% capacity.

2. A Clean, Secret Map

For the kids using the app, it needs to be incredibly fast and take up almost no phone data.

They open it up and instantly see a map with pins for Food, Beds, Showers, and Medical Help.

It shows them exactly what is open right now and how to get there.

It could even have a "hide screen" button—so if a kid is in a dangerous situation and someone looks at their phone, they can tap it and the app instantly switches to looking like a boring calculator or a weather app to keep them safe. It could even call ‘000’ and dispatchers would be trained to listen to the phone call instead of asking all these questions.

3. The "No-Internet" Backup (SMS Bot)

Not everyone has data on their phone all the time. So, you could set up a phone number linked to an AI bot. A kid could text the word "BED" and their current postcode to the number, and the system would automatically text back: "Youth Housing on Smith St, Collingwood has 2 beds available. Catch the 86 tram."

4. The Cafes, Bakeries and Restaurants

They solve their over-production problem by giving away their extra food at the end of the day, instead of throwing it in the bin.  They could also claim the items they give away as a charitable donation and payless tax.

Everyone wins.

This Invention is Unreal: The 'Backpack Bed'

The Backpack Bed is honestly one of the coolest pieces of engineering I’ve ever seen.

By day, it looks just like a normal, heavy-duty backpack that someone can use to carry all their clothes and stuff. By night, you unzip it and it literally unrolls into a waterproof, windproof, single-person tent with a built-in mattress.

Here is why it's such a cool game-changer:

No Poles Needed: You don’t need to fiddle around with tent poles in the dark. It just rolls right out onto the ground.

Keeps You Warm: The bottom has a built-in foam mattress. Apparently, sleeping directly on cold concrete sucks the heat right out of your body, so this protects people from freezing.

Super Safe: The fabric is fire-retardant (so it won't catch fire easily) and it has a built-in mosquito net to keep bugs out.

An Australian charity actually invented them because crisis shelters are so packed right now. They don’t sell them to the public; they give them out for free to people who have no choice but to sleep on the streets.  It’s awesome that a couple of Aussie’s invented a way to keep people dry, warm, and safe.

Some Pretty Crazy Stats About Being Homeless in Australia 🤯

Hey guys, just wanted to do a quick follow-up to my last post about our 'Backpack Bed for Homeless' sleepout next week. 

While we are going to be shivering on our cardboard boxes, (mine will be the best designed) here are some facts about youth homelessness in Australia right now, and it honestly blew my mind (KAPOW!).

I wanted to share a few quick things:

• It’s not just adults: There are over 40,000 kids and young people (under 25) who don’t have a safe place to sleep tonight in Australia.

• The "1 in 4" Rule: If you look at every single homeless person in the country, basically 1 in 4 of them is a kid or a teenager under 18. That’s literally the size of some of our classrooms.

• It’s mostly hidden: When we think of being homeless, we think of sleeping on a park bench. But for kids my age, it usually means couch-surfing (moving from friend's house to friend's house) or a whole family crammed into a tiny, overcrowded room just to survive.

• The saddest part: Right now, because of how expensive everything is (thanks labor), crisis shelters are so packed that 1 out of every 2 young people who show up alone asking for a bed tonight will get turned away because there's just no space.

Thanks for your support – The donations go a long way to helping everyone in need!

My Back will be Broken, I’m going to Freeze, and It’ll be Totally Worth It Again

My Back will be Broken, I’m going to Freeze, and It’ll be Totally Worth It Again:

The Cornish College Sleepout Backpack Bed for the Homeless is on next week Friday 5^th June 2026 – Saturday 6^th June 2026

So, next weekend will be the annual Cornish College ‘Backpack Bed for the Homeless’ Sleepout and honestly? … I have never appreciated my actual bed more in my entire life.

Going into the first time last year, a bunch of us thought it’d basically be like a massive, low-key sleepover with mates on the school grounds. We brought snacks, woolly hats, and heaps of layers. But man, reality hit pretty fast around midnight when the temperature dropped to what felt like minus fifty (okay, maybe it was like 8 degrees, but still).

Here’s a quick breakdown of how it actually went down:

The "Bed": A literal piece of flattened cardboard on the hard floor. No mattress, no nice pillows. I woke up at 3:00 AM feeling like my back had been rearranged.

The Food: We had a super basic soup kitchen-style dinner. No UberEats, no raiding the pantry for chips. It really made you think about how lucky we are just to have a full fridge at home.

The Noise: Turns out schools are terrifyingly loud at night. Every time the wind blew, a tree rustled or a possum screeched, someone would wake up. I think I got maybe three hours of solid sleep?

But I actually did it. 

This time around it hits home more.  The adventure is also now reality

It’s pretty crazy to think that while we do this for just one night as a challenge, there are thousands of people—including kids our age—who don't have a choice. They do this every single night, rain or shine, without a warm school, fire, friends or security guards keeping them safe.

It really puts things into perspective. You stop complaining about your parents telling you to make your bed when you realize some people don't even have a door to walk through or a bed to sleep in.

A massive thank you!

Thanks to everyone who sponsored me. All the money is going straight to 'Backpack Bed for the Homeless' that support people experiencing homelessness, helping them get hot meals, blankets, and proper shelter.

I'm raising funds for Backpack Bed for Homeless

Our School is fundraising for Backpack Bed for Homeless. They are a national charity that provides Backpack Beds to street sleeping homeless people.

The Backpack Bed is a portable emergency bed that is waterproof and fire retardant. It keeps people warm safe and dry.

Please help us raise funds.