Just last weekend we competed in the Destination Imagination Regionals competition held at our very own school, Seycove Secondary. This is the third year our PLP classes competed in these competitions, so we have had quite a bit of experience with what these challenges are all about. Destination Imagination is a program that embraces some of the core aspects we also use in PLP including project based learning, creativity and hands on learning. The program has challenges that are made to provide teams the opportunity to practice skills that are helpful for everyday life while finding and presenting a solution to the challenge given.
Within DI each year there are 6 challenges for teams of 3-7 to compete against other teams and find a solution to the challenges. The 6 categories for challenges include technical, scientific, engineering, fine arts, improvisational and service learner (there is another one called early learners but that doesn’t apply to us).
To decide which challenge we wanted to compete in we wrote down our top three and one we didn’t want. I ended up being put into Fine Arts, the challenge I didn’t want and although this had its negative side I feel like it was definitely a positive impact to my learning and putting me outside my comfort zone. My group included four of us which is a pretty small group especially considered to the group sizes I’ve been in for DI in the past. Hannah, Robbie and Lucas were my group members and although we all kind of didn’t want to get this challenge, we work really well together and created a presentation that was very memorable. Now that your probably wondering what we did for our challenge I’m going go back to the steps we took to get our final presentation.
When we first got our groups we had to do a mini in class video assignments where we had to create a horror movie trailer using one of iMovie trailers that wasn’t the horror effects. This didn’t have much to do with actual DI but was really really good team bonding activity to see how we worked together and our communication skills in a limited amount of time. One of the aspects we made sure to include was different camera angles to make the video interesting and add cool cinematography. Here is our horror movie trailer:
For my team our challenge was to create a two act musical that included a spectacle and set change. As I said before this was very out of my comfort zone because I am not a musical person in anyway. After getting over what I can’t do and the challenge I decided I could be put to good use and volunteered to do ALL THE FORMS (not a smart idea there are literally 6 pages of forms).
Anyway our first step within finding a solution to our team challenge was brainstorming ideas which is something we spent a lot of time on. Part of this brainstorming process was creating a team name, we came up with ending On a High Note. This planning was good in some ways but did take up a lot of time that maybe could have been spent writing the script or editing our presentation. The idea we ended up using was a story about a grumpy business person who needs to be thought the value of music with a blast from the past to the 60s. Once we came up with this ideas, our presentation started flowing very nicely. One great part about our group is we each had our separate skills that work so well together and complement each other’s work. For instance Lucas is very good at writing so he offered to write the script which was amazing and worked out very well.
Our team preparing for DI
I think we did a good job of preparing everything before the tournament even though at time a couple things were rushed such as our set change from one scene to the next. One part of our presentation I am very happy with is how our 60s inspired costumes turned out especially Robbie’s costumes. Although we were prepared in some aspects one thing that we did plan very last minute but worked out very well was our spectacle. Our spectacle included a mixture between costume change and acrobatics which yes is as crazy as it sounds. Robbie was wearing two costumes and then did a hand stand where me and Hannah pulled of one of his costumes to reveal his other character. It was pretty crazy and super funny.
When Regionals came we were prepared and well practiced, although I was very tired showing up to the school on a Saturday at 8 am. Thankfully the tournament was at Seycove instead of some school out in Burnaby or Langley where we would have to get up even earlier. Instead of fighting off my tiredness I decided I would wear sweatpants and slippers to the school until I had to change into my costume for our presentation. This was DEFINITELY the right choice, I felt so comfy throughout the day and more relaxed about our presentation.
At 10:20 we presentation our musical and a lot of the class came to watch (mostly to see Robbie wearing his groovy costume). Let me just say it went really well, we didn’t go over the time limit of 8 minutes which I was very happy about as in most of our practice trials we went 20-40 seconds over. Another great aspect was the appraisers really liked our presentation especially our parody of I ain’t got Rhyme from Phineas and Ferb.
Another part of our challenge we had to do which was worth 25% of our score was the instant challenges. An instant challenge is kind of like a mini one of the man challenges except you don’t know what your doing until you get in the room and you have to do a task of performance usually solving a challenge. Unfortunately i can’t say what our instant challenges we did was because It is a secret and we aren’t technically allowed to say anything about what we did for the instant challenge.
Our overall scores were really good and we ended up coming first in fine arts for our age group!! We also came first in our instant challenge, which was a great experience and shows a great representation of how our team works together. I think my team did great during the challenge and we really made a funny and enjoyable skit that represented some of our talents and skills. Here is a video of our performance:
This was a great experience that allowed me to work on some skills that will be useful throughout the rest of my life including time management, leadership, communications, team work and many more. I’m excited to see how we decide to take on the challenge of provincial especially considering the fact that two of our group members are not able to attend provincial.