Here is my recommended song for this post.

So this year we did DI again and you probably know that it hasn’t worked out for me in past years. But this year it turned out pretty good. We won first place, not by default, and everyone loved our performance.

 

At the very beginning of the year we were told that we could either participate in DI or be a team manager. I chose team manager. Sadly we found out that that wouldn’t be a possibility as it would take too much time out of our busy lives to do this. So we were all thrown into the ring again. We all determined our first, second and third choices. My first this year was Scientific. This year it was all about creating an attraction commonly found at an amusement park and having it located in an unlikely location.

In October we found out our groups. I’m with Aiden, Will, Simon and Reid. We started out by doing a bunch of activities that involve us all understanding every little bit of the challenge. So we spent a few classes sitting there reading the challenge book over and over again. We read through it and understood our deliverables. We had to present an attraction found in an unlikely location and that attraction had to show and use 3 scientific methods. The location also had to be shown visually and audibly. Oh, and the story had to show the impact the attraction has on the location.

It might sound small but it is a lot by way of work and prep.

These activities took about a month or so. Then we started coming up with ideas. I was thinking something along the lines of creating a canoe ride that would be found underwater or some place.

We finally came up with the idea of having a canoe ride where riders would fish in a volcano for lava fish.

A little bit crazy right?

After determining a rough idea of what we wanted to do we figured out some of the skills we have. We made a list for each team member on what they are interested in, good at doing and what they have the resources for. I, of course, wrote about my various survival skills, my dancing skills and my pyro skills. We used what we saw in those tables to figure out our first ideas of what we can do for our Team Choice Elements. Our first ideas for those were a Saftey Video for the ride and a 3D printed necklace designed by our team.

 

By the time we did all of this it was Christmas Break. Before leaving we put together a timeline to get everything done. The script and ride we hoped would be done before California and then we would do team Choice Elements and location when we returned.

 

We started out strong. I was in charge of the story and that got done on time. Other than that thought it didn’t go as planned. We ended up sending Reid, who wasn’t going to California, to get al of our materials for when we returned. By the time we got back we had a bunch of fish and materials to turn them into lava fish and that was about it. So we of course spent our time creating lava fish. After that week Reid came down with Mono. That made us change our script completely and we had to start finishing things up. We spent one week building our location backdrop as well as fixing and editing the script. We also finished our Saftey sign. (We changed it for the sake that the ride wasn’t built yet)

 

On the weekend beforehand the tournament we finished the location backdrop but we also built our “Canoe”.

 

For the canoe I grabbed some peg board, from my conplex’s garbage building, and a plastic bin. Aiden and I then cut the peg board to match the canoe and extend furthut so we could join them at the front to make it look like an actual canoe.

We brought it in the next day and thus began the week to build a working ride. The first few days we painted and got resources together. On Wednesday Simon cut some wood to look like waves. We painted them on Thursday and I passed off some metal poles I had gotten earlier in the week. Simon then spent thrusday night bending the poles. We attached it all together on Friday and tested it. I only fell out once (when the canoe wasn’t secured to the poles. We then spent the rest of the day securing the ride to make sure I didn’t fall out the next day at the tournament.

On another note. Our 3D printing idea for our other team Choice element didn’t come together in time so our back up had to do. I had to dance. Now I have done dance classes for about 2 years. I stopped this year because I was the oldest kid there by 3 years. I probably will get back into it in next school year. For the dance moves I would have to do I made them simple but made sure that I delivered them at the best possible standard. The moves were a variation of the wave and a variation of the running man.

 

After getting everything together it was finally time for the tournament. We didn’t have any challenge until 1:00 so we spent the morning rehearsing and watching other groups performances. Then at 1:00 we presented our team challenge which is what the ride is for.

We did really well. The appraisers really enjoyed our performance and were amazed by the ride. The only thing that really needed work was our safety sign. It didn’t look very good due to me not being able to use an exact knife. I accidently tore up the sides and it just overall needed some work to make it look nice.

 

Now fo our instant challenge we really need to work on our results. We did alright in getting ideas and producing a product but we weren’t points focused. Which we need to be next time.

 

We came third in our instant challenge and first in our team challenge.

 

Those last sat two weeks before the tournament the entire team came together to get the job done. We all worked really hard and I’m proud of what we accomplished. This is th one year in DI where things actually came together and my team got first place (not by default)