Destination Imagination.

What is it?

Destination Imagination (DI) is a provincial tournament that we do every year, which builds our communication, collaboration, and building skills.  We have been doing this since grade 8, and have learnt to work with new people.  Overall it is a really cool experience where we gain a lot of valuable experience.

We started off by getting put in a random groups and topic.  It really allowed us to connect with people we did not know, and might have never met without this project.  I got put into a group with three grade nines (Esther, Gino, Lila), and one other grade ten (Charlie R.).  They were people I had not really interacted with, which led to an awkward start within our group.  I felt like our group chemistry was not the best; some of our group members did not get along the best and there were some arguments.

I worked a lot in the development in the story, and creating the script.  I also helped with the development of the puppet (I brought the RC car), and finished some of the forms.  I was a valuable asset of my team, and I think that I really helped with the success of our teams results.

We based our entire project on Ancient Egypt and how their was a race of “Meta Humans” who lived before them.  Since their were multiple stories about the Sphinx being built before the Egyptians, we decided to take that idea and made it so the Meta Humans were the ones who created it.

I played the role as the puppet, and was supposed to be a meta human from the past.  Each “Meta Human” has an enhanced human characteristic, which means they can either have enhanced speed or strength.  My character has an enhanced lifespan, which explains how the puppet had survived for so long.

My other team members played the role as an archaeological group who stumbled upon this discovery, and ended up discovering this meta human.

What did I learn?

The most valuable lesson that I have learned through this project was being flexible.  “Flexibility is a tortoise trait.”  I had to do things that were unplanned, and solve problems on the spot.  Some of our group members did not do their work; which sometimes made me have to finish what they were suppose to do.  Though it made made me irritated, I had to understand that people were busy, and that they had others things to do in their life.  These were things that I learnt in the process, to be ready for the unexpected, to support team members when they were unavailable.

However, I felt like our prop-making and some of our group member’s artistic background really allowed us to come second in the competition.  It really showed us how we are unique in our own way, and that we have skills and talents of our own.  Like mentioned previously, us coming in second was a major highlight of the day; it really showed us how much could be done in one dedicated morning of building and rehearsing.

This competition was a very valuable experience that not only made me grow as a person, but understand different things.

Overall, I would say like this project was pretty successful, and were able to place pretty high on the rankings.  We came second out of four teams, and was the highest in the instant challenge aspect.

Thanks for reading,

Chris