Finally.

We have finished.

DI is over. All the hard work and stress that went into that project has dissipated. Now that we’ve done that we can do pretty much anything.

I guess that now I’m writing in a blog post I’ll tell you what I think we’ve learned throughout our DI experiences:

Basically, every year we’ve been through a learning cycle that goes as follows:

Recognize

As every year in DI we are given challenges that typically in groups of 5 or six other PLP 10 students. This year, as I explained in my other DI post for regionals, I was with Spencer, Izzy, Kate, Calum, and Isobel in the Maze Craze Challenge.

My Old Friend DI, Back Again

Back to our first step, recognizing. I think that this is definitely an important step, and that’s because this is when you learn all about your challenge, the main idea, it’s do’s and don’ts, and all its variables. It’s an important step to take because it sets you up for the long road ahead. There are also a lot of details in this step that you have to make sure you know for the future.

My opinion on this step is that in the three years we’ve done DI, we have grown a lot in this area.  We all take time to read over what our challenge is, and begin planning ot our ideas. After doing this since grade 8, it’s gotten a lot easier since we know the drill and everything is easier to understand. What I mean is, after doing these challenges for three years, we have experience that helps us with our current challenge. Even through we might get different challenges for different years, the base of how DI works is still the same, and so we can carry over our strategies and techniques from past years, which I think we did effectively.

Onto the next step.

Imagine

In this step we thought of what our performance would actually look like. We would brainstorm all the ways we can combine a challenge with multiple aspects with an entertaining story. This step was probably the most important because we had to make sure we hadn’t missed anything from the first step, and that it made sense with our story. All the little things like the object removal, team choice elements, and the maze traveler had to integrate seamlessly into our performance.

For this step, our team didn’t have too much trouble. I think that as a group we did really well thinking of ideas, as we came up with a few right off the bat. We quickly narrowed our ideas down by process of elimination to two main ideas, a space mission, where the maze traveler is a mars rover, or a police mission, where the maze traveler is a bomb defusing rover. I think this step is really important. It is when you combine the details of the challenge with what your team wants those details to look like in person. It takes a lot of thinking because pretty much everything in the story has to represents something from the challenge.

Initiate and Collaborate

In this step, over the three years we’ve done it, is when we get to the fun part. At this point, we have our script written, props we need are in a list, and we just have to get all the materials and put everything together. We then work as a team and prepare our props, costumes, backgrounds and more to be ready for performance day. This step is hands-on, its do whatever needs to be done so we can move onto the next problem. It is supposed to be done in advance to the performance day, so we have time to practice. But it doesnt always work out that way…

In my DI career, I have to say that us PLP’ers are good at doing this step really quickly. That’s because we pretty much do all the work the week leading up to DI day, when we’ve had months to do this step. I don’t know what it is, but we always think we’ve got it under control, and then DI is in 6 days and we all scramble to get everything ready in time. Every year for the most part this happens, and only this year was I really aware of it. It is honestly just teenage procrastination, and its effects kick in right at around this time. We say, ah, just do it next week, and then when doomsday looms on the horizon, only then do we realize our lethal mistake, and it’s too late.

Thankfully though, we usually manage to complete all that needs to be done. But only on rare occasion we actually have time to practice with everything ready. This year, this was our case for both regionals and provincials. We had everything ready the day before and then our first full practice was the real live performance…

But, over time this has gotten better. Barely.

Assess

If we did this step correctly, we would be pretty much ready for our presentation. We would look back at what we have completed and make sure its what we need to complete our challenge. We would fill out our forms, which are vital, and conduct a dress rehearsal to get a feel for how everything works. Then we’d plan ahead for who will take what to the school where the event is hosted. And then we’d wait for the day to come

But, to be totally honest, I’ve never done this step this way at all.

Realistically, we had been so behind that we would/have to pretty much go from Initiate and Collaborate straight to Evalute and Celebrate. Our dress rehearsals in front of the class were always horrible, but they also doubled as a bucket of cold water in the face. It showed us we had to get our heads in the game. Our forms would be assigned to one unfortunate soul in our group, while the rest of us “worked on other stuff.” We’d be finishing all our props and backgrounds at this time, which were supposed to be done earlier, and not sleeping at night from stress. Then in the last 10 minutes of class on the Friday before the DI day, we’d assign the gear to different people and figure out how to get to this random school in Surrey.

And if you haven’t noticed already, I’ve been describing my teams adventures through this step. But SOMEHOW, we’d pull it together, and this time for Provincials, we actually were sort of ready.

Now, prepare yourself, it’s time for:

Evaluate and Celebrate

In this final step, we’d complete our main challenge and instant challenge, and have burned all our props and costumes. Just kidding, we didn’t burn anything. Yet. But we would have received our scores, and probably disagreed with them.

But let me tell you about our experience and our results.

 

Once we got to location, my team and I ran through our script a few times, and halfheartedly ran through an entire performance together. This time, we had a few things that  we re-thought. For example, we started our rover over from scratch, which me and Calum tag teamed to finish off over spring break.

 

The rover managed to work fine save for a increasingly wobbly wheel, but like every time, it has to break halfway through the performance.

Izzy and Spencer managed to completely recreate our failed prop transformation, and this time it worked really well. It was a small balloon with remote controlled lights inside of it, and that small balloon was inside an even larger balloon that would pop, signifying a bomb explosion. There also was an explosion sound effect. It worked really well, so props to you guys.

For our team choice element, we had our own music, and this time we decided to play it live. Isobel was the trumpeteer, and it sounded really good. She played some soft/sad music once Calum died and I was left alone

And of course, Kate worked on her French speaking. This was for her villian character, and her and Izzy go back and forth about not speaking french. We did this to add to our characters to make them more diverse and interesting.

Below is our presentation, filmed by the one and only, Simon Devisser.

Results

Well, we did ok. Not as good as I thought we would but we still got 1st place, which is sweet. The rover stopped working halfway through, but I think that other than that, everything went as planned. We also got first in our instant challenge, which is awesome. Information regarding the instant challenge is highly classified and cannot be discussed at this time. Overall I’m really happy with how we did, we left DI behind, and we had a lot of fun in the process.

Overall, would I say DI has helped me as a learner?

Reluctantly, yeah I think I would. DI has probably done more for me than I know it, and its taught me a lot about time management and teamwork. It also teaches us how to use our creativity and problem solving skills to work our way around crazy challenges, and to shine a little of our own interests into what we create. All of this I think is a major part of everyone’s lives for getting jobs and careers.

But no matter what I say, and if you agree or disagree with me, it’s been “scientifically proven” that DI helps kids of all ages learn in different ways. A man by the name of Dr. Mark Runco conducted a survey on students who participated in DI, and students who didn’t. This is what he found:

Destination Imagination students were found to be:

• More engaged and imaginative when completing given tasks
• More creative than non-DI participants
• More self-confident and tenacious
• Able to elaborate on and generate more ideas than non-DI participants
• Great collaborators—86% of DI students agree that their teamwork skills improved within 1-2 years of participation
• More inquisitive—92% of DI students agree that solutions to problems are often improved by considering a variety of perspectives

Whether or not this is true is up for debate, but I would definitely say that it did help us a little. I’m just hoping there’s not some form of DI-PTSD that we will all develop where we picture crazy cow hats and large groups of crazy little children running through a school every time we sleep…

To conclude this long post, I’d like to say that DI has been an interesting experience. Ive worked with a bunch of different people, and every year has been completely different. I think that if I were to take away one thing from DI, it would be that there are thousands of ways to solve a problem, and that I should go with what i think is best and complete that challenge the best I can. I should work hard and get everything ready for my big day, and then when that day comes, show everyone all the hard work I’ve done and blow them all away. I think that most of DI’s principles carry over to life in general. There are always going to be problems, some are easy, some are hard, but I have to just keep going and do one thing at a time.

Wow, that was deep. I think now is the time where I sign off.

 

See you