And…we’re back from another crazy adventure of Destination Imagination (or DI)! What a great learning experience full of team work, growth and creativity! First off, you might have noticed from our team picture at the beginning of this post, that we’ve lost 50% or a good chunk of our team. Well, to answer that question, let’s just say that they couldn’t make it to this tournament (lucky them!)so, we had a independent group of two who took the challenge head on and attended DI. For those of you who have like no idea what in the world I’m talking about, DI is a worldwide academic competition where students between the ages of Elementary school to post Secondary compete in different stages of competitions where they will use teamwork, determination and creativity to solve a challenge both pre-prepared and on the spot! For more information about Destination Imagination and my challenge I competed in, click on the link to my regionals blog!

Anyways, for those of you who are completely caught up on my DI adventure, let me tell you how the Provincials Tournament went… well, like I said earlier, we only had a team of two. With Grace gone and Caleb away, our mighty ”Constructures” were whittled down to just two members: Sam and I. This in a way, makes completing the challenge harder especially when having to perform a skit or play with only two, but, a lot less arguing and people in the way came with that. DI is a great experience where your meant to solve problems, well, that just exactly what Sam and I did: solve lots and lots of problems.

We all knew from the beginning that the whole King and Queen story wasn’t working. It just felt awkward having to act so formal and unlike ourselves, so, to solve that problem, Sam and I completely scrapped that idea and rewrote the script, this time using characters based off of our personality and hobbies. I got to dance, and Sam got to use his own everyday slang and puns! Bye bye king and queen! To view our script, simply click on the link below!

Drop Zone Adventure x2-1e3fp33

Secondly, our structure,and every other team’s, got destroyed after the Regionals Tournament to check for nails. This meant that we had to rebuild the structure. Another problem came with this one, however, because the team members that were no longer part of the team were the ones who had the machine saws! This meant that we had to cut the wood by hand. The project was luckily done by Sam (Thank you, Sam!) But ended up being a last minute project. You might have noticed that the sketch with the structure’s dimensions is slightly different than the actual structure. This is due to weight because when our team members left us, we had no idea what type of wood they had used. So when we built the structure, it was overweight and had to be altered. Talking about last minute changes, our team scored very poorly on our event depicter last tournament so therefore rethought the whole thing. And on the night before, painted a new backdrop! Again, thanks Sam for helping! Below are pictures of our event depicter. ⤵️

The cave

The house (opening scene)

The forest

I was very proud of our new backdrop, considering it was a last minute change and that our last backdrop was much worse (it was blank). Another problem that occurred was on the actual day of the tournament. Because of all the last minute changes that were happening, we forgot to print the actual forms that allowed us to compete ! This is where I had my miniature mental meltdown and, like last time, luckily had Sam there to help. We ended up having to fill out most of the forms by hand, but, as boring and hand cramping as it was, this unlikely and sudden activity was a great team bonding event. Way to go team for solving challenges!

Now, you might be asking yourself, well, Kiera, what about the actual tournament? Well, the actual performance went pretty well and mostly as planned. All lines were memorized and costumes were complete. Our structure withstood all the weights to a total of 700lbs! To see our full performance, watch the video below!

We also did well on our instant challenge, but unfortunately, we’re not allowed to talk about it. But, if you want to see our score for our central Drop Zone challenge, click on the images below! If you don’t want to, good choice!

Besides just doing our own challenge, the rest of the time was either used to eat food or cheer on team Seycove. After all, we really are one big team. Cheering on others played an important role during the day as it was encouraging to have people from your class watch your performance but also friends were what made the whole experience worth it. Here are some pictures of us having a good time.

 Cheering on Team Seycove!

Well, to wrap up this DI season, did we win anything? No. Unless you count a participant certificate, but I did learn that teamwork isn’t always easy and sometimes you really have to keep going and persevere even when everything seems wrong and people aren’t exactly with you. If I had to change something about the actual presentation, I would have changed the amount of effort that went into the event depicter not knowing it was worth so much. Next year, I hope to take what I learned and apply that to next year and a fresh new start. Would I do DI again by choice? Absolutely not! After everything I went through to get to Provincials, I would never go through again. But am I glad I did it? Absolutely yes! What I learned from this experience is something I’ll take with me for the rest of my life. DI helped me grow not only as a learner but as a person. Having to deal with difficult situations, whether it be a challenge or a person, the lessons and strategies I’ve learned are and will forever be valuable to me. I guess I did win something after all, new knowledge, and, a new friend:

“Thanks, Sam! Even if it’s for the one millionth time, thank you!!! It was awesome working with you! A crazy journey I’ll never forget. And the greatest prize or treasure of all? Friendship!”