DI Regionals Reflection:
8:30 every morning, every day until regionals came.
Welcome back to my blog, today we are talking all about my experience in DI. In case you don’t know already DI is a non-profit educational organization, the DI stands for Destination Imagination. If you can’t already guess by the name it is all about using imagination, teamwork, and other skills to create a solution for one of the four challenges. Every year there are four same categories with different challenges. This year there was Technical, Engineering, Fine Arts, and Scientific which is the one I did. We were put in groups of 5-6 and they were made up of grade 9s with two grade 10s. Our challenge was Making and artifact with an archeological investigation, creating a character from the past who is also a puppet but the puppet had to be controlled using technical methods (the team member was not allowed to be a puppet), and you had to change a human belief. Now that you know all about the challenge I will talk about our solution, my experience during regionals and preparing for it, what I we are changing for provincials.
So our Story or solution for Regionals was: There is a group of people including two archaeologists (Dr. Atlas) a tour guide (Gary) and a young girl (Amelia). The main character Dr. Johann (archaeologist) goes back to his home town to return the artifact to the sacred tomb that has a special place in the towns decisions and actions. There is then a twist at the end where the tour guide ends up stealing the other half of the artifact to restore the tomb and bring the town back to its glory day’s. To take the artifact the tour guide had pushed Dr. Johann near the tomb, then came the other archaeologist and the young girl who ends up saving Dr. Johann. Dr. Johann then fights the tour guide for the artifact and restores it to the tomb. After restoring the tomb stone the Leader became balanced and good again and then town was restored.
In the beginning we had a lot of ideas and we didn’t really solidify one story until two weeks before Regionals which was not good. Once we had a solid idea we assigned a group member to write the script but when they finished writing the script was very confusing and didn’t meet the requirements. So it was back to the drawing board to come up with a longer and better archeological investigation. Once agreeing on a new investigation I wrote the script and the final product turned out great so it was time to practice lines and create the narrator’s script. There was only a week till the competition and we had almost no props and one final script. In order to be ready on time almost all of us came in everyday at 830 or 8 to work on it. One of my group members did the narrator script while another one and I painted the artifact, the puppet, and the puppet stand. We even came on a late start day, when school started at 9:50 we all (except for one) came at 8:30 and we ended up getting a lot done.
When dress rehearsal came around half of us had memorized our lines and we were still racing to get everything done. Safe to say the dress rehearsal could have gone a lot better because not everyone knew there lines. The next day it was regionals and we all arrived at 830 and began practicing. My group had our central challenge and instant challenge in the morning so we had to be really focused and practice lots. We had a corner at the end of a hallway where we practiced setting up our props, testing the bass, practicing our lines, practicing/choreographing how we would walk and create path. During this practice time we were all very focused and I think we used that time affectively. We had our instant challenge first which went ok, I think in terms of our invention and our team work it was good but the finished product was not as good. After the instant challenge we got to go to a cool of room where we all reflected on the instant challenge. After the Instant challenge we headed back to out hallway spot and practiced a few more times before we were called up by the appraisers to bring our stuff in the library. We brought all of our stuff outside the library and waited for the appraisers to come and ask us questions, explain rules, and for the appraisers to have there forms. Once everything was good we had eight minutes to set up and begin our play. It was very hectic setting up because we wanted to use as little time as possible and I had to carry and set up the puppet then run off stage before Brooke started speaking.
The Team Getting Ready Outside. (Appraiser in the hat is explaining the rules)
Overall I think our presentation went really well, we all spoke clearly and remembered all of our lines. For next time we are going to add a backdrop and change up the storyline so it is less confusing. Furthermore, we are going to practice our lines and work on being more prepared. In the end we got third place which was great, I am proud of my group and the solution we presented and I am looking forward to provincials. You can watch the performance on YouTube Channel:
Challenges
The most challenging part of DI for me was the uneven work load. I felt like it was very uneven in the way that one person did a lot of work, three people did work, and one person didn’t do a lot. For next time I think we really need to work on everyone doing there share. Another challenge I faced in DI was communication. For example we would decide on meeting times but some group members didn’t check there phones or were busy so they were unable to make it. Lastly, one of the challenges was settling on one idea because my group had so many and it was very hard to narrow it down and make our story less complicated.
Overall I think DI was a very interesting and rewarding experience. There are a lot of things that I would change and a lot of stuff I am very proud of. If you would like to see my teammates persepective or expirience you can check them out here:
https://www.blog44.ca/robertj/
http://www.blog44.ca/CameronBr/
I had a good experience and I am looking forward to provincials! Stay tuned, as always have a great day!