With March comes a PLP tradition, Destination Imagination. Another rendition of one of the most stressful projects of all always has experiences that will require reflection. It’s hard to understand what makes DI so exhilarating with the steady inflow of cringe-worthy moments. Even when we bomb parts of our presentation, I see the successes and our mistakes clearly. This Saturday we participated in our DI regional competition sharing our work in a public setting for the first time. I will go over some of the successes and failures both at the presentation and the preparation and most importantly the keys to moving forward. Before you read keep in mind we did not solve the team challenge but the lessons I learned are still valid important.
Our challenge
In the technical challenge this year we were tasked with “[Designing] and build an aircraft that takes off, flies, and lands.” This challenge proved to be one of the hardest I have every seen forcing me to explore the true depths of my creative thinking. A second yet equally important challenge was to “Design the aircraft to deliver a team-created payload.” This second task tied into the first one and it made the challenge even harder. The third task was to “Create and present a story about one or more characters exploring a remote place.” Requiring us to tie in the creation of aircraft into our story providing a unique challenge that would stump us for days. We were prepared to solve these challenges with 2 months of work leading up to the regional competition.
The Build-Up
During the buildup to the presentation, I learned a lot about how I work as a person and some very important lessons about the nature of group creative work. I have always found group work challenging especially in the creative setting of DI and this DI was no different. Through the entire process, I was forced to stretch my abilities to my limits to accomplish success.
The first lesson I learned was more about the best and worst leadership techniques. When I took over the majority of responsibility and leadership over the creation of our aircraft I learned about the nature of what you have to do get the work done. When you are put in a situation where you have to be productive you cannot let yourself become victim to excuses and a lack of effort. Even when there are outside influences you have to willing to push through and lead your group by example even when you feel you are the only one working. For example, after I realized that the deadline that we had to meet I finally got in my head the urgency of the problems we faced and put a large amount of my time into solving them. In turn with my effort came a much more united team.
The second important lesson is the importance of remaining focused at all work times and remaining committed to the solution at any time we can. Finding a way for our entire group to be available at all times was a challenge that could never be overcome. However, this gives no excuse for a lack of productivity. Through the entire creative process, every single group member including me had times of a lack of effort. I came to this realization when I realized we only had 2 weeks to create our plane. I realized how weak our entire team’s effort had been and how difficult that was going to make the next few weeks. However, after we made that change it allowed us to create and build more effectively. Ultimately we were unsuccessful in our creation but I found myself very happy with the way we were in the immediate lead up to the regional competition.
The Presentation
Our presentation was not an ideal representation of our work because we did not solve our team challenge so it was missing a key component. When our plane was not going to fly for reasons out of our control we were forced to think on our feet with only 10 minutes before our presentation. We attempted to troubleshoot but experience working with the drone lead us to conclude that we had to come up with another solution to our presentation. We decided to improvise by throwing our payloads across the presentation area. A worst-case scenario for us as a group but we were prepared. We all felt comfortable with our script that we could safely improvise while remaining on the script and on point during the presentation.
On stage during the presentation I found myself to be one of the drivers of the improvisation on the stage. This is in stark contrast with who I was even 6 months ago. 6 months ago I would have been much worse under the pressure and uncertainty around me. I am really not sure what has changed but I believe my mental strength has improved. I am very interested to see how I can continue to work on that skill for the rest of the year and beyond.
Provincials?
Our plan is simple for the upcoming provincials competition to improve and refine our presentation.
- Our first priority will be to create a working plane. A challenge that eluded us for weeks will have to be solved before provincials. It will be sure to push us but I believe that with the right amount of effort building and brainstorming we will be able to create a working aircraft.
- Our next priority will be to tailor our current payload drop technique to our new aircraft. Our current 2 prototypes for our payload drops should cover a majority of aircraft designs but we will be prepared to be creative with our solutions in the case that our current designs do not work.
- Our third priority will be to continually refine our script. This is a part of our challenge that I am least involved in but I will have to remain in constant communication to ensure that our aircraft fits within the parameters of our story.
DI will always be a challenge but this year I found it be one that is harder than ever before. Partly because of the extreme difficulty of our challenge but also had to do with mistakes my group and I made at times throughout the DI process. Overall we made mistakes at alarming rates but I believe it leads to only more opportunities for us to improve. As I look forward I hope to challenge myself and be willing to push myself to the limits as we chase greatness. I hope we accomplish our goals and hope we can improve and take home my second provincials championship.
