Destination Imagination, or DI for short, is a tournament where teams from different schools compete against each other and try to finish set challenges. This year my team chose the engineering challenge. This was a task to create a structure that would have to be under 25 grams, be made of balsa wood and hold as much wood as possible. Then we would have to create a story that would go along with this and it had to be on a international issue.

We prepared by planning the performance aspect of this project first and put more focus into the structure later. We started by brainstorming about what the topic should be and we came up with global warming. We thought this would be a great topic because this is a big issue for the whole world with the polar ice caps melting. Then we included different nations and at the end had them agree on how they could fix this issue.  They worked together to build a rocket (the structure) to explore living on another planet.  This is what we chose to build for the structure:

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We worked hard on our script, backdrops and projector slide show to prepare for the competition. We all worked well together and rehearsed so that we were well prepared.

The regional tournament was an good one.  The only problem was that when we weighed the structure before performing at DI it was heavier than when we weighed it before the tournament. So before we went on stage we had to shave down the balsa wood structure until it met the new scale weight.  Unfortunately this meant it wasn’t as strong and one section broke when the first weight went on it.  The good news was that we didn’t let that distract our performance and we didn’t get flustered.

We went there to learn and we know if we can address the structure issue, then we can do well at the Provincials.  I liked how we tied our structure into our story.

In Destination Imagination this year I learned a lot. Our group worked well together from the planning to the implementation stage.  I learned how to use my creativity to the best of my ability when we designed the props and projector scenes and how to make a good script that wows the audience. I was more comfortable performing this time in front of an audience,even when there was the structure problem.  We had lots of good feedback from the audience.  It was fun and I’m looking forward to Provincials!