A Destination Imagination Journey!

Hello world,

Throughout these past weeks If been working on a challenge from the program called ‘Destination Imagination’ (or called D.I.). You are probably wondering “What is Destination Imagination?”. Destination Imagination is an organization that constructs out of the box challenges to twist minds of a variety of students worldwide. The main point of Destination Imagination is to test students ability to work together and solve problems. This requires quick thinking and lots of teamwork skills. From my experience with Destination Imagination I realized that teamwork is a much more important asset then I first realized. This post will explain my process through Destination Imagination and what main three massive skills I’ve learnt throughout it.

Initially when we started of Destination Imagination I was not really sure what the point of it was. I started to ask myself “what is the point in doing this”, but after a few sessions of work time with my team I started to understand what this was about. I knew that the main goal of Destination Imagination was to gain better knowledge about how to fix problems. The way I realized this was when I read a booklet that stated what our challenge would be. The main point of the challenge I focused on, at the moment, was the portion of the challenge where it stated that we had to construct a model of a building. At first I thought that this would be an easy task, even though it was definitely not. I thought this because when we immediately read this part we (me and my team) started to erupt with different idea’s. Once we settled down we continued reading the rest of the challenge. The next concept of the challenge we came across was to make this model of the building fit into a story. This is when I started to understand that Destination Imagination wasn’t just a small activity, it was a hardcore project. When I read more about this section of the challenge I had to decide on how it would be possible to have a story based on a model of a building. Once I quickly thought of a few idea’s I understood that the model of the building would be the foundation of the whole story concept. In addition there was one more concept of the challenge, the spilt screen. The first time I read what the split screen part of the challenge was I was really confused because I had no idea how or why we would have to make our story of a building have a split screen located within it. This is when I immediately remembered that this whole challenge would be a video and a video could easily feature a split screen. Due to that I was able to figured out what the overall point of this challenge would be, which is to create a video that demonstrates your problem solving skills.

After a few days of organizing what our Destination Imagination schedules would look like, we were ready to take on our first main checkpoint to success. The first concept that we reached, that I feel was important, was when we came together and shared our idea’s with everyone throughout our team. The way we did this was by taking our multiple idea’s to solve the challenge and record them on a idea generation chart. Therefore we toke our many idea’s and displayed them to our group. Consequently we sorted these many idea’s into the three main portions of the challenge. These portions of the challenge are the story, building, and the split screen. After we sorted these idea’s we had to chose which ones we actually reasonably possible within our budget and actual skills. Later we completed many different worksheet to help us make a pathway to start up the completion of the overall challenge.

Once we completed the worksheets we were given free time to discuss and design how we will make a video to complete our actual challenge. To start the discussion we had to follow the rules of the challenge for the first section of the challenge, which was the building design. In my personal opinion I feel like this was the most extreme aspect of the challenge because we had to incorporate so many different elements within a model of the building. The first idea we had to come to an agreement on what type of art style we were going to incorporate into our building. The style we agreed on was street art because we felt is was an interesting style that was very colourful and unique. Once we decided on a art style we had to move to selecting an architectural style that would be a great foundation to everything within our building. The architectural style we chose was postmodernism because we felt it was a creative way to express features within a building. In addition we settled on 4 style features to enhance the style of the building. The style features we meant to accent on the architectural style or the art style. To achieve this the 2 architectural style features were shapes and colours, because that is the main design of postmodernism. The 2 art style features weren’t actually decided because after a long thought we changed our art style to aboriginal art. The reason we changed our art style was because we realized that we were supposed to show how opposites are complementary to each other, and postmodernism and street art aren’t really described as opposites. This then made us settle with an aboriginal art style because it’s an opposite compared to postmodernism and it’s also something that is close to our community. With this in mind we researched possible style features to accent on aboriginal art. Once we researched possible style features we decided on a totem pole and an mural. After discussing our style features we were ready to talk over the last portion of the model building which was the purpose features. The 2 purpose features were meant to explain the purpose of the building and why is was created. To know what our purpose features were we needed to know what the story was, then from that we would know what our purpose of the building would be.

With the completion of our purpose features in mind we had to settle on a story. In the idea phase of the challenge solving process we came up with about three solid story idea’s. One of the story concepts stood out the most because of the architectural style that we chose. This story concept was about people throughout the town disagreeing on a building design that really stood out in the town. We felt this was the perfect concept because a postmodern style of architecture wouldn’t blend in because the point postmodernism is to make a bold statement. In addition to the completed concept of the story we wanted to focus on how the building could be incorporated into the characters of the story. Immediately we thought that a recreational centre would access that goal because people in the story would have a place to be entertained, with other people, and they could exercise. When we settle on this concept we clearly realized that the purpose of the recreational centre would be to entertain and exercise.

In addition to our concept idea’s for the story we had to make it come to life by acting. This wasn’t possible until we completed the model of a building. We worked after and before school to assemble our design into an actual 3D model of a building.

This sketch of a building was slightly tweak throughout our model making journey. Once we assembled the building after long days we presented it within our video. The first video we made was a rough draft. Within the film making production we reach many hurtles due to scheduling our time. This resulted in rough draft that wasn’t what we hoped for. The reason for this was because we had a script that was reasonably ok, and our model of the building did not reach it’s full potential. Therefore we gave ourself critique to help us improve on the matter. Later on we remade the film using different angles and film techniques, which really enhanced our story. The second thing we did was improving our building so it would suit our needs to achieve the solution to the challenge.

Finally we were ready to edit our video and add different effects such as split screen to enhance our story. When we were using split screen throughout our video we made sure we were showing the criteria for the split screen section of the challenge. The point in our story were we used a split screen effect were in the portion of the story were phone calls were taking place. I personally felt this was a great way to interact with the viewers of the video.

In conclusion I feel like Destination Imagination was a big learning experience because I learned many different skills that I can apply to my life. These skills are…

1- Team work

2- Problem Solving

3- Quick thinking

When I reflect on my usage of these skills I really understand why Destination Imagination is so important, sure I felt like there was no purpose to it at some points, but now I feel like I can easily remember where I gain these three important skills. The point in the challenge where I felt like I learned more about teamwork is throughout the entire process. The reason I think this is because without working with my teammates I could have never accomplished what we did throughout the challenge’s solution. In comparison I also gained quick thinking skills because whenever something went work me and my team had to quickly improvise with different ideas. To tie in with this idea of solving the challenge I had to learn how to solve problems no matter how big or small the problem was. To concluded this reflection aspect of DI I made a reflection worksheet…Lastly, I will always remember these skills and ask this question “Am I using these skills to improve myself?”.