For this term in Maker we competed in a tournament called Destination Imagination. Destination Imagination is a competition where you are required to come up with a solution to a problem that was given. There were different groups, with different problems, and that’s what I think made it really interesting because every group had a different thing that they were working on and it was exciting to see what other groups were coming up with. To name a  few different groups there were technical, scientific, fine arts, and my group which was improv. The improv challenge was a little different than all the other ones because it’s improv and we didn’t know exactly how our script was going to go until we were doing the challenge, whereas everyone else had a script that they planned out before. I think our challenge was less stressful than everyone else’s in some ways, but more stressful in other ways. It sounds very strange but I think it’s pretty accurate because there was much less stress on getting our stuff finished before the tournament, but there was much more stress on the actual presentation because we didn’t know what it was going to be until we were doing it.

At first I was not looking forward to DI but after doing a tournament and looking back on it it wasn’t actually as bad as I thought it was going to be, and it was actually pretty fun watching all my peers compete. I think that our group worked pretty well together and I was happy with how the performance went.

The challenge was villain and superhero themed, where the superhero has an underwhelming power like having a built-in pencil sharpener, and the villain has a real power and the hero had to overcome a conundrum that was chosen, and defeat the villain with their underwhelming power. We also had to add sound effects into the skit which proved difficult.

The first thing we did when we got the challenge was read up on the rules of DI, and then read up on the challenge. For the first part, they gave us around 20 different powers and we had to choose ten, or two each. I chose animal communication and super speed because I thought they wouldn’t be too hard to show in a skit. Next we had to research our powers. I watched Ant Man for animal communication and the Flash for super speed. Once we did that we were each given one major part of the challenge to become a “master” at. The thing that I had to become a master at was the underwhelming power that the hero had. I had to research in depth about this aspect of the skit. For example I had to know exactly what elements of the underwhelming power gave more points, like the fact that the creativity of how it was used was worth more than how accurately it was depicted. After that it was a lot of practising with random conundrums and powers. Practising was really fun because some of the conundrums that were given were super funny and made a very interesting skit.

When the day of the tournament came around I felt pretty nervous but also prepared and like I knew what was going to happen. The first thing we did is our instant challenge and unfortunately I’m not allowed to talk about because it is against the rules of the tournament. But luckily I am allowed to say what an instant challenge is. It basically is a side challenge that is different than the real challenge. It takes less time and nobody knows what it’s going to be until you are in the room and the judges are explaining it, hence the instant part of it. I think that our group had a small advantage because we already had practice with thinking on the fly. I think it went really well but that’s all I’m allowed to say. For our actual challenge, we got mind control for our villain power, our conundrum was school isn’t let out over summer, and our underwhelming power was that the hero could solve any puzzle with ease.

I think that we can improve on our performance in many ways moving forward to the provincial tournament. One of those ways is to improve our sound effects. We also need to be a little bit more enthusiastic and energetic. The last big thing that we need to improve is using our prep time efficiently, because we only have two minutes to prepare and if we use that time unwisely our skit could be much less interesting. If you want to see the video of our presentation it is right here.

Overall I think that our performance was very successful. I had a good time at DI and working on DI, and I think this project improved my teamwork skills substantially.