PLP 2022 just completed DI 2022 and to be honest, this year went a lot better than last.
We had actual DI this year, no videos. A real performance in front of appraisers. I have a feeling everyone was quite worried and concerned because of last year, so everyone went into it not wanting to do it. We were aware of DI and our teams long before we actually started working, speaking of which:
Our team was given ‘the secondary level technical challenge’. We named ourselves the ‘Despicable Devices’ with Sylas, Ben, Dana, Makenna, Sepaus, and Declan (Go read their posts as well!)
Getting our challenge (feat of skill, team choice elements, roles): We had a very tough and confusing challenge, we needed a lot of clarification from our team managers to not get disqualified. Our challenge was to create 2 technical devices, 3 hazards for the devices to go over, a story with a feat of skill, and like everyone else 2 team choice elements. I think personally our biggest problems was to get both devices over each of the 3 hazards in a compelling way that adds to the story.
We actually worked quite backwards in the beginning, its best for technical teams to create the devices and hazards then the story but we managed to figure it out. Last year we had a lot more time so we were working slower than we should have to start, and realized that we needed to pick up the pace. We eventually created a story and ideas for devices and hazards for our first dress rehearsal.
Our first dress rehearsal… happened. We were down 2 members and had nothing physical to present, only a story and ideas. So after that and some non-interfering help we prioritized building.
We created ideas for building and Sylas created our pulley system outside of school and we worked to divide and conquer, half of us worked on scripting, and the other half built. I pulled apart my skateboard and built a make shift board for the pulley, and it worked! Hazaa! we did something! The second device was yet to be tackled.
I actually really like our story, it went through a lot of revisions. We ended with a story of 2 robbers in Nebraska 1964 (very important) robbing a bank for money. Their motives ended up being rent money and divorce funds, I’m not sure why but it worked. The scripting was very important as it is what let the team choice elements breathe, more on that later.
The second part of the challenge which I must be cautious to talk about was the instant challenges. I can’t talk about what the instant challenge actually was (though it was very fun and creative). But the idea is: we are given a challenge, then we have 2 minutes to plan a presentation, and 2 minutes to present it. This challenge was very important in showing our teamwork, creativity, and improvising skills.
As you’re about to find out Sylas took the lead on device creating, as he has the most experience building. Our second device, a make-shift remote control car/buggy was crafted from cardboard and the skeleton of an RC car. This device was a challenge to balance with the hazards, as the wheels were small and often got caught. Thankfully we figured it out and it worked for our final presentation.
The hazards were challenging to find a balance of “lets make this doable in time” and “I hope this is creative enough”. There were multiple types of hazards we could choose, a tunnel, hoop, un-even terrain, barrier, moveable object, and a team defined hazard. We ended up going with a tunnel, un-even terrain, and a team defined hazard.
This was our tunnel:
This was our Un-even terrain:
This was our team defined hazard, we defined our devices successfully navigating it if they did not get tangled:
Team choice elements were the most fun part for me personally, as it was just Sylas and I jamming out for 6 minutes. We used the script to create or find pre-existing basslines and drum grooves to create little songs that match the story, overall this was super fun and quite simple to do. I think it added a lot to the story and performance. The hardest part of this was being quiet enough to play over them, but since the performance room was so small it was easy to hear.
Okay, there has been a lot of work since the first dress rehearsal, there is definitely still much more to be done. But our second one was much more of an improvement, we got more non-interferral support, knew we were on the right track.
Our third and final dress rehearsal went pretty well, we were about 90% complete with a few not major touches. Overall a pretty good rehearsal, not much to say.
Now we are nearing the presentation, and are getting some final touches. These were: who is driving who? Who’s taking all our props? Finding out performance times, and creating our team sign.
The team sign was Despicable Me themed, as was our whole team and project. So we printed off pictures of a bunch of Despicable Me characters, I think it was pretty funny:
In an instant and a millennia, it was presentation day. All of our props were more or less smoothly brought to the school, and we all seemed ready.
The presentation was really fun, everything was light-spirited and the appraisers were really kind. Best of all as you may have seen, everything worked! I am overall quite happy with it, i’d give us an 8/10 if we were to compare what we planned to do and what we actually did. As I mentioned previously, we also had the for some reason super secret instant challenge, then the day was over and I could sleep. It was a good day.
I forgot DI would have a driving question since it wasn’t a Seycove ran project, but alas it does. This driving question is:
“How might we learn and experience the creative process while developing our creativity, curiosity, and courage?”
In the wise words of me pretending to be philosophical: “To experience is to do, so the more creative approaches you take the better you will get at understanding the creative process. It takes courage to create something and present to people who might rip it apart with insults and critiques. So if you as a group take the trial and error approach with your creativity, you will start to form your creative process.”
Conclusion: This was such an improvement to last years DI, and im glad this was the grade 8s first experience. While there was a lot of stress and anxiety leading up to it, I learnt a lot and am proud of our team for pulling it off. See ya!