Well, Destination Imagination 2017 has finally ended for our Flight 9 class, and although it was a much better experience this time around, I’m still very relieved to say it’s over. I did enjoy it far more this year rather than last year in grade 8, however, provincials weren’t all that successful or rewarding – even though my team came in first place (by default, before you conclude that we actually deserved it.)
The road to provincials was a bumpy one, I’m not going to lie. In fact, I think we did much better during regionals which is kind of unfortunate. My group was required to create a brand new Project Outreach solution due to the fact that our previous one had failed (to say the truth, the previous one really didn’t even follow all of the challenge requirements. Oops.) I really wish we could’ve kept our regionals performance, but we had to obviously change it, and that really sucked.
Our new challenge was all about baseball. Personally, I don’t really follow the game, other than that one Seattle vs Toronto game I attended. I know slim to nothing about the rules, and I really don’t know much about field prep… which ta da, was our topic! The two baseball players in my group had announced that the fields in their league were frequently poorly prepped and it was enough of a problem that it caused injuries and annoyance for the teams, and so, our new team challenge was born.
Our new story was about Chris the cub and his dad, Bruce the bear. Chris was super excited to be starting a new season of baseball, but after his first practice, he got hit in the eye with a fast ball off the ground because of the poorly prepped field. The lip of the field swooped up, causing the collision. The fable followed how Bruce, Chris’s dad and coach, raised awareness for prepping the fields safety.
My group slacked off on planning a story. We didn’t pull together awesome props or backdrops. We didn’t put in the effort that we knew we needed to win it all. I think that’s where we slipped – we were so convinced that because of our awesome regionals performance that the provincials one would go just as smoothly.
Fast forward to April 8th, the date of provincials, and we were ready, but we weren’t in the most competitive mindset. With one group member missing, Alex, Reid and I ran through the fable multiple times, but it really just wasn’t as good as our previous one, and I think we all knew that in our hearts. It showed in our performance, lines were forgotten, there wasn’t a ton of enthusiasm, and it just wasn’t all that amazing.
Our Instant Challenge was another story though (in a good way, don’t worry, we didn’t totally suck…) We really worked together and took each other’s ideas to make a great solution. I can’t talk about the challenge because of the oath I signed (yes, really…) but I think it went great and we definitely didn’t lose points for not working as a team.
Awards rolled around, and my group did get first for our main challenge and Instant Challenge, but it was by default because we were the only outreach team in senior level. We honestly didn’t earn enough points to qualify for first if there were other teams, but I guess it was just a large learning experience.
Destination Imagination provincials taught my group a lot, but I think overall it really showed us that if we put our hearts into our work (like what we did for regionals) we can accomplish great things. Unfortunately, this wasn’t something we wanted enough and it showed, but for next time (well, for the rest of my group, but not for me… farewell Seycove!) we know what to do to be proud of ourselves and our work.
