Hello people, since about January I have been working and practicing on a new project called Destination Imagination (DI), DI Is a competition and learning experience for students from elementary to senior levels, and this is my second time taking part in DI. In this project you are to create and present a solution to a problem with appraisers judging your final, preferably entertaining, performance. Participating in DI is a way for students like me to learn new and creative ways to solve problems. There are 5 categories to create a solution for, those categories are Engineering, Improv, Technical, Fine Arts, and Scientific. My team and I (Nya, Julien, Keenan, Liam, and Nathan) competed in the scientific category, called “up close”. The solutions required elements were a mysterious object, a microworld, microworld scenery, 2 team choice elements, a light effect, and a special microscopy technique we chose florescence microscopy. Then, we created an incredible performance and learned a couple things along the way. 

The planning

Now for every solution you need a process to get there here is what my team and I planned. At the start I’ll be honest it didn’t go so well, we were all a bit unworried about getting things done so we took our sweet time. Unfortunately taking your sweet time doesn’t end well in this scenario, as we learned the hard way about a month away from our deadline. When the performance day got closer we started to plan a little better, apparently all we needed was a little push from our teacher and the trusty deadline to get going. We planned meet ups outside of school to get on track, did less talking and more acting/creating, and eventually we finished making all the props and elements in time. We got 2nd place on our challenge and I’m very proud of that but I definitely think I learned that I need to manage my time a bit better in the future, maybe if I do then we could get 1st next time. 

The story

Our final solution was about 3 scientists that shrunk into a microworld and fought against a bacteria called Vibrio Vulnificus, and discovered a mysterious object to defend themselves. The mysterious object was a makeshift slingshot that was an antibody to fight off the bacteria, we chose a slingshot because it is Y shaped just like an antibody. Our microworld was the Petri dish the 3 scientists were researching before they were accidentally shrunk to micro size. Our microworld scenery was some digital art projected onto a wall behind us with a portable projector. Our First team choice element was a bacteria costume, a green sweatshirt that I myself sewed. The second team choice element was sound effects that my teammate Julien created. The sounds were used to enhance our story and acting. As I said earlier in the post our microscopy technique was fluorescence microscopy, and last, our light effect was a light sensor illuminating the mysterious object.

The Result

As expected I learned many things in this experience but one of the most prominent for me was the importance of teamwork and organization. My team always got along, that was never the thing we had to overcome, what we needed was to motivate each other and use each of our skills to create the best thing we could. By the end we improved a ton and I think if I look back on this project I will always have a good view of it because of our ability to overcome the challenges that came up throughout. 

Thank you for reading about my DI experience and I hope you enjoyed, until next time.