Since grade 8 now every year around this time of year we have a competition called a Destination Imagination. Destination Imagination or DI is a competition that is all about creativity and working as a team. As DI calls it, it is

“The Destination Imagination Challenge Program is a fun, hands-on system of learning that fosters students’ creativity, curiosity and courage through academic Challenges. Our Challenges blend STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) education with the arts and social entrepreneurship. Students who participate learn invaluable 21st century skills as well as patience, flexibility, persistence, ethics, respect for others and their ideas, and the collaborative problem solving process.”

Since grade eight I have been in a different challenge every year. The first year I was in the engineering group where we had to create a structure that could hold weight and was under a certain weight. Here is a blog if you want to read it:

Starting up Destination Imagination

Then last year I was in the fine arts challenge, we had to transform something and make a color disappear, here is that blog post:

A New experience at Destination Imagination

 

These past two years I had difficult times where I struggled. This year though I was determined to make the best out of the experience. I was placed into the engineering challenge, the challenge was that there was a maze and we had to have something removed from the maze as well as an eventhappen plus get out of the maze. That is why it was called the maze craze. Here is a video that explains it thoroughly:

I was in a group with six others they were Spencer, Sam, Calum, Kate and Izzy. We had trouble at first thinking of what direction to take the challenge. At first we thought of doing space but then we thought other teams would be doing the same so we decided to do a story about an officer and removing a bomb form the “building” or rather maze. Here are our sheets that we used to help narrow down our ideas.

We thought we had everything planned and ready to go but as the time came closer and closer to get everything done, we realized we were struggling. We had our script done and were happy with that, and we were also happy with how our story came out, here is the script:

__________________________________________________________________________

 

Characters:
Grandfather – Spencer
Police 1 grandfather flashback- Sam
Police 2- calum
communicator/head of department: Isobel
Villain 1/undercover cop: Kate
Villain 2: Izzy

 

Materials
Police costumes
Villain costumes
Handcuffs
Fake weapons
Something that looks like a bomb
Backgrounds: spencer narration, bomb room, police station

Script
Opening scene
-Spencer enters-

Hey everyone, thanks for coming to the smith family reunion. Most of you know me as Rob. Everyone is having a lot of fun I see, and that’s good. But I just wanted to share a story that I have prepared . It was about 50 years ago today actually, when I went on my first mission on the NYPD Bomb Squad. So I’ll take you back to this day so I can tell you this story. My story starts outside the police station but I’ll tell you about the villains first.

FLASHBACK

-Kate and Izzy planting bombs scene-
– there are in a rush because the police is closing in on them. They are scrambling to plant bombs and hide-

Kate: Dépêche-toi, la police se rapproche. Qu’avons-nous à nous défendre?
Ok hurry up, the police are getting closer. What do we have to defend ourselves?

Izzy: lemme Check, but i don’t think I have anything. Ummmmmm…. oh! Look at this, I’ve been looking for these! (Pulls out bombs) I’ve got some bombs, I must’ve left them in my bag from last week!

Kate: Bien, alors. Mettons-les autour et puis se câcher
Alright then. Let’s put them around this apartment room and then hide

Izzy: Ok sounds good. Here take these ( hands Kate bombs)

-leave scene-
CHANGE SCENE TO POLICE STATION

-Sam and Isobel enter the scene-
-Sam’s first day of work-
-Isobel welcomes Sam to the job-

Isobel: hey guys, you must be rob and Thomas. Welcome to the squad. Here, I’ve got your gear, go ahead and put them in the back.

Isobel gives them their jackets, equipment and badges –

Sam: Awesome thanks

Calum: Ugh it’s heavy

Isobel: Yeah that’s because it has our bomb seeking rover. You said you specialized in electronics?

Calum: yeah…

Isobel: Then it should be easy to use. I’ve got to go, see you later

(ALARM GOES OFF)

Calum: What’s that?

Isobel: That’s a code red! We don’t have anyone else on duty, and you guys scored really well in the academy, so, guess what, it’s your first mission. Get in that squad car and they will brief you on the way. Go, go, go!

Sam: Thomas, let’s go!

-Scene change to building-

Spencer walks in, Izzy and Kate are hiding in maze –

Spencer: we pulled up to a run down looking apartment building, two storeys high. Thomas and I were pretty nervous. The cop who drove us out told us that there were two fugitives hiding somewhere on the top floor, and that they were pretty sure there were some hidden bombs as well somewhere in the maze of the room. Thomas would be driving a programmed rover through the room, and it’s meant for finding bombs. I was there to support and protect him. Our police captain was on the radio giving us instructions

(Spencer leaves the scene)

Sam and Calum enter the maze –
Izzy and Kate are in the maze hiding and setting up bombs –

Isobel: Ok guys It’s safe to enter, good luck

Calum: here we go. Stay close

Spencer: We entered the building and it was all dark. It was completely silent as we crept through. Thomas was carefully watching the video display from the rovers camera.

Sam: hey is that something in that corner over there?

Calum: umm let me check. (ROVER DRIVES TO EVENT SQUARE 1) Yes that’s a bomb. Good thing we found it. I’ll take it and drop it outside once it’s defused.

Sam: Ok nice work. We’re doing good. Keep driving through and keep your eyes peeled for anything else.

Isobel: Good work team. Keep on going. Follow the rover and work your way through slowly.

-rover keeps moving through and Sam and Calum follow-

Calum: Do you think the criminals are still in here?

Sam: Definitely, all the other ways out are covered.

Calum: Okay the next area looks clear, I’ll move the rover through.

rover reaches next event square, the transformation one –

Calum: wait a minute, the rover isn’t moving. Wait, what does this button do?

-Pushes button, lights turn on-

Calum: oh, that’s good. It’s still not working though. I’ll go grab it. Hang on

Sam: no, thomas wait!

Sam and Calum freeze, Izzy and Kate unfreeze –

Izzy: Did you hear that? I think it was the police…

Kate: oh no isn’t that just great

Izzy: I know perfect timing

(Kate looks over at rover)

Kate: hey What’s that thing moving over there?

Izzy: It looks like an… RC Car

Kate: it’s right near the bomb, maybe we should set it off

Izzy: good idea, going off in 3,2,1…

-Calum walks forward-
BOOOM
-Bomb goes off, explosion sound through speakers-
-Bomb kills Calum. Calum lies on floor-

Spencer – The bomb explosion turned out the lights and I couldn’t see Thomas anymore. I knew he’d been hit, and my ears were ringing so loudly I could barely stand. I barely heard the captain speaking in my earpiece.

Isobel: What happened rob? Rob? Get the rover out now, we need to get you and Thomas out of there.

Sam: I can’t see Thomas, but I’ll get the rover out. Everything is falling apart!

 

Kate: We gotta find an escape route RIGHT now!

Izzy: there! That window! Go, go go,

-Izzy and Kate run-
-izzy and Kate get caught by the police-

 

-Spencer enters, but no one freezes-
-Sam is still moving through maze, depending on how fast the rover is at this point. And Izzy and Kate are being held by police-

Spencer : At this point, I was almost out of the building. I could see the criminals getting arrested through a hole in the wall, and I ran for it. Then I was safe. Safe again.
-Flip background back to family reunion one-

Spencer: And that was the end of my first mission in the field. I’d lost my best friend that I’d known since I was 6, and that was … crushing. I will always remember him as my best friend and a great police officer.

__________________________________________________________________________

At this point we still didn’t have have a working maze traveler. Calum one of our group members said that he could get it done but we were struggling. It wasn’t until the night before that we had a rc car and even then it wasn’t correctly working. In the mean time while Calum was working on that it the rest of our team was working on the props and background.

 

Then came to the day of the competition! This year it was at Seycove so I felt like we had an advantage. This was our schedule along with the other Seycove teams;

We were up against the grade nines from seycove as well, also they were the only other team in our grade. So we knew we were getting either first or second. Here are some pictures of my team presenting:

During the performance some things did go wrong for example the car didn’t work so we pushed it with our feet. Also we didn’t show of our team choice elements very well and that showed in our scores.

Because of these reasons we did end up getting second out of two. For provincials we know what we are going to fix and improve upon, one of them being having an actual working rc car. I feel for provincials we will do better by being more prepared, maybe even win?