DI 2018 has finally come to a close, and I’m here to share my experiences with this year’s Destination Imagination Provincial tournament.
After DI regionals had ended, my group and I had to reflect on our performance and find out what went well and what didn’t. Taking advice from the feedback we received from the appraisers, we had decided to switch around some of our team choose elements, edit our script, and build a giant rock out of paper mache to conceal the speaker that we were using for our soundtrack. We had planned out a schedule of what we would get done and when. The first thing on the list was to build the rock. The rock was built out of chicken wire and paper mache, and was finished over spring break. Next we began to build our new team choice element. This team choice element was our drums. We had decided to create drums out of PVC pipe, balloons, wooden sticks, quark, and construction paper. These drums would show our creativity and love for music. We had planned to get the materials and finish building this team choice element in the first three or four days, then spend the rest of the week editing the script and rehearsing our presentation. Almost everything went according to plan, accept rehearsing. We had devoted the whole time to building new things to add to our presentation, and didn’t actually leave enough time to practice as much as we needed to.
When it finally came time to present at DI provincials, I felt a bit underprepared. This wasn’t because we had slacked off, but rather we had put our effort into creating more, when we should’ve been focusing on improving what we already had. We should’ve taken more time to memorize the edited script and review the changes we had made in the performance. With that said, I was quite happy with the changes that we had made. I thought that the drums looked really good and were a great addition. Also, the script was a lot better after we edited it for provincials.
With all the ups and downs that DI has induced, as beneficial as it was, I’m glad that it has finally come to an end. This tournament has been a real reality check for me, showing me all the ways that I thrived, and all the aspects that I need to improve for next year.
