A few weekends ago our class participated in the Provincials of Destination Imagination. If you would like to learn more about how our class did at Regionals which was the last tournament then click here. Or if you would like to read about how our teams did last year then click Here.
So just a recap from my last post about DI. It’s an educational organization that promotes creativity and the learning of different skills like Creative & Critical Thinking, Team Building, Problem Solving, Risk Taking, Project Management, Perseverance and Self Confidence. There are different challenges that teams can participate and compete in including fine arts, technical, scientific, engineering, improvisational and service learning. My group chose visual arts which involved making a story about how a colour’s disappearance changes a world. Our story also had to include a colourful character and a disappearing act but you can read more about that in my other blog post.
At Regionals, we came second, yay sounds pretty good right? Well there were only two teams and our presentation was pretty good but we had multiple problems including our script which was a little too confusing and our disappearing act which was more like an appearing act. So as a group we had to rewrite our script. After some brainstorming and discussing, we came up with a shorter, easier to follow script as well as a disappearing act not an appearing act. One thing we also had to do was rewrite the script for 3 people instead of our original five group members because I couldn’t be at Provincials. That weekend I was at a volleyball tournament and the one other person couldn’t be there because of a family commitment. Don’t worry I still helped with all the preparation up to the day of Provincials. It just made the script a little more challenging to memorize for the three people who were attending.
Here is our script:
After editing this first draft of the new script multiple times and revising it as a group, we individually came up with our final draft of the script which was easier to follow. We still kept the same overall idea as our original script for Regionals. Here is the final draft:
When we were done writing the script, we only had about a week to finish all the backgrounds and get all of our props ready as well as memorize and rehearse. Even though I wasn’t performing it was still very stressful and we tried to practise as much as we could after school with all of our busy schedules.
The first thing we had to do for our props was create our new disappearing act. We made a thermal changing cardboard of which the paint on the board changed colours when heat was applied to it. To make this, we first bought black colour changing thermal powder which we mixed with yellow paint and then painted the cardboard. When mixed together, the colour of the paint would change when heat was put on the cardboard. So for our disappearing act, when Yellow, a character in our story, was running away he trips and puts his hands on the piece of cardboard leaving yellow handprints. The handprints would then be found by the detective who was chasing after Yellow giving her a clue to the whereabouts of Yellow but when she looked again they have disappeared in plain sight.
The next prop we made was one of our team choice elements which was a finger scanner we made using the thermal paint again. This would be used to reveal Yellow to the audience in the interrogation scene because when Yellow put his hand on the scanner it would turn Yellow. To make it look like a finger scanner we painted the rest of the box black and added some details.
One of the last things we had to do was make the backgrounds for the presentation. This actually took longer than expected as we had to make a couple of different backgrounds including an investigation scene, a colour company background and a yellow background. After we were done all the props, backgrounds, etc. it was time to practise.
Even though I wasn’t presenting, I helped out with timing my group to let them know the length of the performance as well as give feedback from my perspective. It was very stressful for my group however by the last day our performance looked good and we were excited yet nervous.
After Provincials I was told that our presentation went pretty well but the disappearing act didn’t work!!! This was pretty upsetting to hear as we had worked so hard on this part. At least we didn’t come dead last (we came second last). However, we did do well for our instant challenge with a score of 73/90. Overall, I am proud of the work we did as a group even though our presentation didn’t go as planned.
Here is the video of our team’s presentation at Provincials:
Here is the video from Regionals:
From the start to the finish of this project, I think we did really well improving and revising our work, and the first script we wrote to our final copy showed real effort and improvement. Revising and editing our work are things we learn to do all the time in PLP and I think this has helped us through this challenge. This was a fun project overall and has taught me skills that I will definitely use in the future. I can’t wait to see the new challenges we can choose from next year!
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