Destination Imagination, I don’t hate it.

It’s the time PLP 9 has been anxiously waiting for, our first stab at Destination imagination.

As of writing this we just finished our DI Regional Tournament, which took place on March 2nd at Seycove. Before we talk about the day itself, let’s go back to when DI first started in early December. On the first day we learned what challenge we were doing along with our team mates.

Starting with our challenge: My group was assigned the technical challenge, this year Destination Imagination’s technical challenge is Pinball Heroes! We had to create a pinball machine featuring 3 machine modules and a story. The machine itself had to be a maximum of 8 ft by 16ft. 

Thankfully that was the maximum size and we could make it smaller, our pinball was supposed to be a size 3 soccer ball. Along with the machine, we also required a story that had to be related to our machine.

Starting with the PLP 9s, I was with Jack, Ailie, and Mika. Then for the PLP 10s, we have Jackson and Jasper! We started off on well, we begun with the creation of our team contract. Some of the terms being:

1. We all promise to listen to each other’s ideas with respect.
2. We all promise to do our work as best we can.
3. We all promise to hear each other out.
4. We all promise to follow our grade norms (9 & 10).

We started off with just general planning, such as deciding on our actual machine modules. Initially we planned for one light up module, one spinning module, and one raise/lower.

Then after gathering some materials we began building on the long weekend between Semesters #1 and #2, we ended up building our general frame. It wasn’t much, and it wasn’t great.

But that was okay. Then to be honest we didn’t do much for the next while, I think we really got distracted by the semester swap and all of our new classes. It also didn’t allow us for much in class time since we didn’t have Maker anymore (which was when all of us could meet during school hours).

After being generally unproductive in our pinball machine, as the Regional Tournament edged closer and closer, we realized we needed to kick it into high gear. We started off with a bit of a revision of our pinball frame, making it a bit more of a rectangle (it was fairly boxy at the start).

Then we proceeded to not do much for a bit (not recommended), then in the last week before regionals we went full steam ahead. We got plywood for our machine, and we built our modules. We basically got the equivalent for 4 months of work done it a week, I’m so proud of my team for all of the work everybody did.

Everybody initially got to Seycove at around 8:30 in the morning, we spent a fair bit of the morning in the technical team’s half of the annex just getting setup for our main performance. Our instant challenge was one of the first of the day happening at 9:30, I cannot legally give any specifics of the challenge. My team did have some fun with it though! Then our main performance was at 11:05 in the gym.

Photo of the messy state of our machine at 9:21, on the day of Provincials.

After our instant challenge, we did some testing of our machine, and then it was just rehearsing. Unfortunately, we couldn’t have any of our grade 10s for the main event, as Jasper was sick and Jackson had another more important matter to attend to. Despite missing two team members, we were determined to give the best performance we could. As we set up our pinball machine, everybody was a bit nervous as this was our first time doing DI. I think we all came out happy with how we did, as we ended up getting 2nd place for technical teams at secondary level and knowing what we can do to improve for provincials.

DI sucks, if you expect it to suck. – Matteo Aure, March 10th 2024.

If you approach it with at least a bit more of an open mind, it can suck less. Yes I agree with everyone else, DI is hard. There are many challenges, such as communicating with your teammates, or just staying productive in general.

Despite all the challenges and the stress, I can confidently say that Destination Imagination has been an incredibly rewarding experience so far. It has taught us a lot that we wouldn’t have learned in a regular classroom, or even regular PLP setting. 

For me it has taught me to have more of an open mind, and note: I’m not saying you need to have an entirely open mind, initially my mind was thinking “DI will probably suck, but what if it doesn’t?” I’m just saying a little bit of optimism can go a long way.

Thanks for reading, you’ll hear from me again after Provincials (wish J.J.J.A.M.M luck!)