Hello again! Welcome back to my blog! Now, our last project that we have sort of completed was called DI. DI stands for Destination Imagination and basically, it’s a days worth of presentations where groups from around our region, province or even around the world compete against each other in different challenges and categories. 

First, my whole class picked which challenge we’d want to do, then, we were put into groups of the challenge we wanted to do. I got the engineering challenge with Emily, Matthew, Liam, Holly and Ben. This challenge is called Monster effects. Basically, what we have to do is present a skit, make a structure that can hold lots of weights and when placing weights, there has to be a special effect triggered which also triggers the appearance of a monster. Separated from the challenge, there is also another challenge called the instant challenge which counts as 25% of the points that we receive at each tournament. 

Now to start the project off, we were reading the rules and requirements in order to come up with a solution for the challenge. We had a budget, a max. weight for the structure, specific materials to use for the structure, anyways, you get the point, Destination Imagination is not as easy as it seems. 

Next, now that we know about everything to include in our team’s solution, we got to brainstorming; how the story is going to be, what the costumes are going to be, what are team choice elements are going to be, the design of our structure, etc. Here are a few designs/ ideas for our project.

Here is the first draft of our script:

 

Here is the last draft of our script:

Here was the original design for the structure, we wanted to have the weight placing push down a sort of stick that would press down and flip a sort of switch.

We then later decided to change it to this but still with the inspiration of our original idea. Here it is in the structure tester and one of the videos of us testing the structure/special effect:

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As a sort of prop, we also made a counter, here is what it looked like: 

Here is the logo that we designed:

Here was original the design for our backdrop:

Until it ended up being this because of some complications and our backdrop being a little too fragile: 

For this challenge, we also had to include two team choice elements, one of them was our dance, here it is of us rehearsing it. 

At this point, we have spent too much time on other things and forgot about choosing our team choice element so, it was very last minute (about 5 days before the tournament) so we all brainstormed and did an alphabetical brainstorming chart until we came up with something that wouldn’t take us too long, a background song. 

After practicing our dance, skit and weight testing, here comes the tournament. 

In the morning, we did our instant challenge, so, we are not allowed to talk about it what so ever but I’ll just say that it went amazing and we were super proud of how it all turned out.

Next, later in the day, we did our real presentation, what we have been preparing for for about a month and a half, but I still did not not feel prepared. Here is the video of our presentation:

So, let me explain this to you, we made quite a few mistakes:

 

1. We did not know that the person placing the weights was the only one allowed in the box where the structure tester was because, the plan was that Liam would place the weights and Emily would set up the special effect and structure, that was how we practiced.
2. When setting up, we were all working on one thing when we should’ve planned/organized who would setup what. 
3. When we checked in before the presentation, our structure was a little too high, so, we compressed the tin foil a little bit, no problem, right? Well actually, yes, there was a little bit of a problem, when we all practiced, the special effect was triggered after the placement of two 25 pound weights but, what we didn’t think about was that because of the compressing of the tin foil, the special effect went off after only one 25 pound weight. So during the presentation when the special effect went off, we all looked at each other and then the guy that was turning into the monster performed a lower quality reaction to the drink. 
4. When it was time for our dance (and most important/interesting part of our performance since we all suck at acting), our speaker somehow got disconnected during the performance which meant that we only got to perform about 15 seconds of our dance. 
5. Before the presentation as well, we also didn’t practice or time setting up everything, we only assumed how long it would take. 

To conclude on this rant about the things that went wrong during our performance, because of each of those little things, (since we only had 8 minutes to present including setup) less than half our time was the performance. So, we got cut off at the last part which was our dance (and like I said, only got to perform it for about 15 seconds).  

After our performance, we were all embarrassed, sad and a little disappointed. When it came to the dance party, we all got cheered up. But, then, here it is, the award ceremony!!

We knew that we wouldn’t win or definitely wouldn’t get 1st place. But, we thought that we could’ve won the instant challenge and maybe get 3rd if we were lucky. The owner of DI was saying the awards, she said the people who got 3rd place in our category and challenge, she said the people for 2nd place, then, we were all sad because we obviously wouldn’t get 1st place. On the other hand, she announced the 1st place winner then said our team name, Shrimps and Prime Rib! My group and I all jumped up with joy and we were all so surprised! Not only, did we get first place for our engineering challenge, but we also got first for the instant challenge! 

In conclusion, even though our presentation was a total train wreck, we still did amazing in the instant challenge and the appraisers all recognized the creativity in our structure design and  storyline which also gave us lots of points! This was a great experience and I can’t wait for provincials!