Destination Imagination last year was quite an interesting event, yes, my group won first in instant challenge, however we didn’t place in the top three for our main challenge. This year was different because of my groups veteran knowledge of what the tournament was like, but also because we had learned how to work with each other in a way that would help us in the regional tournament.

This year, I chose the Project Outreach challenge because I wanted to do something that wasn’t just a project, but something that actually made an impact and helped people. My group was Ryan, Alex, Reid, and I. We all automatically agreed that we wanted to do something environmental, so we decided on our outreach project to be helping Taylor Creek in North Vancouver, because the creek had lots of water pollution which resulted in the fish population going down drastically.

We then had to start planning. Our challenge was to find a community with any type of issue we found to be important and solve it. To present at the tournament, we had to create a fable with a non human character and an impact prop. Before the tournament, we had to present a project briefing explaining our plans for the creek to at least three people (not family members, though.)

I began creating a story base for the fable, while Alex began to design the project plan. Ryan and Reid both researched the creek, the fish inhabiting it and how we could help them. We came up with the idea to create a hatchery and water purifying system. Basically, the hatchery would be a place the fish could come to safely lay their eggs away from the pollution and behind it, the water purifier would filter the water and flush it back out.

​​For the next few weeks, we were planning, designing, writing and making costumes. It was smooth sailing until about three days before the tournament, when we found out that we didn’t just need plans to help a community, we actually needed to do what was in the plans. We had to actually construct a hatchery and water purifier. Oh. No.

Of course, we couldn’t execute that plan, it would cost thousands of dollars and take months, so we changed the end of the fable to match our not so happy ending story. This was a roadblock for us because we had to work as a group to power through the issue of not actually completing our challenge, but we ended up integrating enough humour into the script and I think everyone ended up enjoying our presentation.

The presentation day was actually pretty fun. It was held at St. George’s school in Vancouver, which was definitely a step up from last year. Our Instant Challenge went super well, we scored 100% and worked the best I think we’ve ever worked together.

TO WATCH OUR PRESENTATION CLICK HERE
In conclusion, Destination Imagination was a great learning experience and I can’t wait for my team to kill provincials!