Alright, so I’ll admit that using the “Imagination” scene from SpongeBob might be on the verge of being a cliche but I do think that it fits with one of the projects that that the people of PLP (and people from all over the world) have been working on recently.

“What is this project?” You may ask? Well, the premise is pretty cool. We have been working on our assigned projects for this competition called Destination Imagination, or DI for short. In the PLPers’ case we’ve been split up into four groups which correspond to the four different categories there are for DI.

For those in the Technical Challenge (including me,) we have to build a vehicle that has two different methods of moving around a little stage while we perform a skit about change. I’m not going to go into detail about my group’s design until the competetion is completely finished, but it’s going to be NASCAR worthy. (Using the word “worthy” loosely here…)

For the people in the Scientific Challenge, they have to research how camouflage is used in nature. They then have to create a prop or item that uses camouflage methods used in nature. They then have to create a story that has a plot twist caused by the use of camouflage.

For the Fine Arts group, they have to create a mystery story on Earth that takes place before the 90’s. People have to figure which of the three suspects are responsible for the mystery. While the story is taking place, a TechniClue is dropped which helps solve the mystery.

The final group, but obviously not least, is the Structural group. Those in the group have to create a structure that can support a certain amount of weight and also be used as an instrument. Using the instrumental portion of the structure, someone or more than someone has to play a musical solo on their structure. There also has to be a story with at least one musical character and has to implement the use of the weight-supporting aspect of the structure.

Another really interesting part of this competition has to do with these little events called Instant Challenges. Because we get points from a certain criteria, we also get a big percentage of our points from instant challenges. While we are actually at the competition, whether we’re getting ready or practicing, we’ll be called on to a top-secret room where we’ll be told to complete a certain task in a certain amount of time. Our points come out creativity and how well we did in our challenge. We cannot speak about the Instant Challenges to other people until the competition is over.

There are also certain budgets on different categories. For example, in the Techincal Challenge, we have two-hundred American dollars to spend on our vehicle. That would be around two-hundred and eighty Canadian dollars. I’m not too sure about the other budgets though, but they range from around 150 American dollars to around 200-250 Amercian dollars, but like I said, I’m not 100% sure how high and low the budgets get.

I think my last point about the competition is that there are a LOT OF RULES. To be honest, I think that all the rules for the different categories and the game itself would intimidate modest readers such as myself. If I remember correctly, there is a very well-sized book on the rules for Destination Imagination. To be fair though, the book also includes scoring, tips, etc. Still… There are SO MANY RULES.

So the reason why I felt like explaining the competition now before later is that when the time comes to make a blog post about how the competition actually went, I think that explaining the competition in that blog would just stretch the blog too long and take away the actual point of my blog post which would actually be about what my team made, how, etc. Anyways, that was my explanation of Destination Imagination, and I wish the other competitors luck!