Before I get started, make sure that you’ve read my previous blog post. If not, you can click/tap/whatever the preview thingy below.

What a DI-Saster

Hi there again folks. My name is Jason Guan and I will be walking you through another DI post. So, I won’t really be explaining a lot about what DI is and stuff like that in this post, so if you have absolutely no idea DI is or you have really terrible memory, then scroll up and read my recent blog post.

So, this is a continuation of my previous post, the last one being about regionals, and this one being about provincials. A bigger, better, DI tournament that’s a 40 minute drive from where I live. Needless to say, it was obviously incredibly fun…. Anyways, The Space Cows made their triumphant return after weeks and weeks of doing…… absolutely nothing. We did improve some things though. We made a literal backdrop and we also improved our lines by quite a bit.

In regionals, we ended up forgetting many of our lines, but we did a lot of rehearsing and managed to memorize all of our lines while adding several new (humerous?) lines. Also, we nearly ran out of time last time because we spent around a minute setting up the projector, but this time, we made a new backdrop with backdrop props hanging off of strings that we just hung over the edge.

Then came DI day. I got up at 6:30 in order to leave at around 7 and successfully make it to provincials. After we arrived and unloaded all the stuff (and there were a ton of props), we went to the gym for the assembly.

We then spent 2 hours rehearsing lines and awaiting our instant challenge. To be honest, I thought we did better than last time. Although I’m not allowed to reveal what we did during the challenge, we did our best and t’was a valiant effort.

After cheering on our fellow Seycove teams, it was time for some Super Special Superb Space Cow action. We graced the stage to thunderous moos from our adoring fans. And, even better, I DIDN’T FACE MY BACK TO THE AUDIENCE!!!

*clears throat* Sorry about that. Just really proud of myself. Anyways…. we did a darn good job. We remembered our key points in the script and nailed all of our lines. And guess what, WE GOT THIRD PLACE. Yep. Our hard work and dedication paid off as we were the only Grade 8 team to bring home a trophy and medals.

You know, DI was a really rewarding experience. I learned tons of new thing that I wouldn’t have learned otherwise, and I was able to solidify that with hours of hands on construction and research. I made some new friends and I got hands on experience. What else could you ask for in a school project? Sadly, I don’t think we’re allowed to go to globals unless we start a go fund me or a kickstarter that can make 5,000 dollars before May 23rd. So, this is my final DI post….. until next year. Be on the lookout for my next DI Post, DI 2: The DI-Ing.

Oh, wait a sec, I almost forgot a few things:

The DI Website

https://www.destinationimagination.org/proven-results/

If you’re up for a little more reading, here’s a link to the Destination Imagination website’s Proven Links section which basically compares the creativity levels of children who participate in DI as compared to children who don’t.

It’s pretty interesting stuff, so go check that out if you’re interested in participating in DI and need a little extra to convince you to join (you should).

The Project Management Steps

Here’s a list of the project management steps: Recognize, imagine, initiate, collaborate, assess, evaluate, and celebrate.

Recognize – So, I personally believe that recognize means recognizing any risky parts and fixing them. For us, that was our main attraction. Our first plan was for some sort of spring ride, but we quickly realized that this is real life, and there is no way to find an economy sized spring, so Fraser thought up our new ride, with the rocking horse concept.

Imagine – I think the main part where imagination played a big part was the location. At first, we were thinking of doing a generic planet like mars of Venus, but we realized that that was supremely boring. So, we looked at moons. We found Phobos, which is a moon of mars, and we found out that coincidentally, Phobos is the greek god of fear. We worked that into our story with the whole curse and artifact part.

Initiate and collaborate – It’s no surprise that I’m running out of words OK? For those of you who read my blog posts regularly, then you’ll know that I do tend to write too much sometimes, so I’m going to combine a few of these. We kind of did use two of these for one goal: To build a ride that doesn’t snap immediately once we put someone on it. We used our teamwork skills to cut, decorate, and finish our attraction and, surprise surprise, it did not fall apart.

Assess and evaluate – So, at the end of our performance, after a couple of hours, we see our raw scores, which only includes our score for the central challenge. Here’s ours:

We did an activity where we looked at our performance and our scores, then we said if they were accurate or not. This was OK, because we got to see our actual scores, instant challenge and everything.

Celebrate – Not much to say about this one. We got 3rd place, we celebrated, and we brought back home yet another trophy. Also, we took this cool group photo.

Oop. I just saw my face. I look like I just watched something very disturbing and are scarred mentally. Meh, what’re you going to do. I guess this is the end. Bye.

Until Next Time,

Yours Truly,                                                                                                                                                                                                                  Jason “The Pebble” Guan

Currently in a lawsuit against The Rock for a “blatant ripoff” of his nickname