Welcome back to my second experience with Destination Imagination. You can check out my blog post on my first experience here. This year was a bit different than last year. Last year, because of Covid, everything was digital. This year it was all in person. There were four challenges that we could have been assigned this year. Technical, scientific, Fine Arts and Improv. You can read about those challenges and more here. I got assigned the Fine Arts challenge, “Tricky Tales”. My group consisted of Max, Ines, Mateo, and Dylan. Our team name was ‘The Coin Did It For Us’.

The first step in the process of creating our solution was recognizing and understanding the challenge. I was not very excited to start on DI so I did not understand the challenge right away. Later down the line, I definitely learned the deliverables better. In case you don’t know what the deliverables are, I will explain them to you. They are the individual parts of the challenge that each solution has to incorporate. For our challenge, the deliverables were the story with a trickster and a tricky situation, an illusion, a costume transformation, and two team choice elements. After understanding our challenge, we assigned roles. These were the roles that each person in the group were assigned.

Now comes the actual creation of our solution. We had a lot of difficulty coming up with ideas that were good. Our first idea involved a greedy hotel owner evicting a bunch of people and turning their apartments into a casino/hotel. The story would focus on a bunch of the evictees robing the vault in the casino/hotel. After we scrapped that idea we went on to the story that we went with. This story involved a irresponsible king gambling away a sacred coin and the kingdom falling into a famine because of it. You can watch our final performance and read our script at the end of the post. 

After coming up with the idea, Mateo and Max, being the awesome teammates that they are, wrote the script while they were on vacation. You can read the script here.(WARNING. PERFORMANCE WILL BE SPOILED IF YOU READ THIS.)

ROLES: 

Dylan: townsfolk 2 – 

Max: Radcliffe – trickster, townsfolk 1, king Julian/friend of Gregory

Cooper: Adus the sorcerer, 

Mateo: King Gregory, Guard.

Ines: narrator

Setting: In the Town of Gregoria (pre famine)

Narrator: Welcome to the town of Gregoria. All is well, all is Tranquil. However, life in this town will soon change. The focus of this story is a young lad named Radcliffe Dunne. Before the period known as the “great famine of Gregoria”, he would do what normal teens his age would do. He would sneak around the kingdom with his friends, and just have a good time. 

Setting: The Castle

Narrator: Gregory of Gregoria, the king, is disliked tremendously by the Gregorian population. 

He thinks only of himself, disregards any problems in the town, and is very bad at gambling.. But his poor decisions will soon come back to get him….

The king: This is too easy! I can’t lose. 

Friend of Gregory: You are on quite a hot streak I must say. 

Friend of Gregory: But are you ready to take it to the next level?

The king: What are you suggesting?

Friend of Gregory: I don’t know, maybe we could up the stakes??

The king: Sure, why not.

Friend of Gregory: What are you willing to gamble?

The king: Well, I have this coin here, used to be my father’s, not sure what is though.

The king: You know what, I have plenty of coins, what does this one mean to me? 

Setting: The castle (after his gambling friends have left).

(Adus cleans up the king’s mess)

Narrator: The king’s sorcerer, Adus, works very hard for the kingdom. He brews healing spells and entertains the wealthy children while serving the king, but Gregory doesn’t show any appreciation of his work, and thinks of him as a regular townsfolk. Adus has a growing hatred for the king and his actions. 

The king: Oh, hello Adus didn’t see you there.

Adus: How was the gambling sir?

The king: I was rolling at first, but I lost an asset to King Julian.

Adus: What kind of asset, sir?

The King: Oh just a coin, doesn’t mean much tho-

Adus: (interrupts), A coin? What did it look like?

The king: It had a key on it.

Adus: You don’t mean the coin of life do you?

The king: The what?

Adus: The coin of life is the thing that keeps this town running! It keeps the crops growing, and keeps the town running effectively! What have you done!

The king: I’m sure we’ll be fine. This coin sounds made up to me.

Setting: In the town of Gregoria (during famine)

Narrator: Only days after the king irresponsibly gambled away this sacred coin, the town’s demeanour changed drastically. The weather went from good to bad, the crops died off, and the people’s attitude changed. 

Townsfolk 1: What is happening to our town? The crops and the weather?

Townsfolk 2: Oh it’s those damned Petronians, they’re probably poisoning our crops!

Townsfolk 1: Oh that’s just crazy talk Fred! No way they could pull that off! And the weather, no way!

(Radcliffe walks by and overhears conversation:)

Narrator: Radcliffe thinks to himself, “what if I did something?” He thinks that he should steal from the privileged king, and provide for the people struggling, like his parents and neighbours with food and resources. 

Setting: The Castle

Narrator: Radcliffe started by stealing goods such as bread, fruits, and other foods from the castle. He would then give these goods to townsfolk and his family. But one night during one of his daily robberies, he stumbles upon a note… It notes where the goods he is looking for are. It also says that water is his friend in this challenge?

Radcliffe: I guess I need water to find these goods?

Narrator: The trick behind this, is that the message on the wall is completely messed up. Radcliffe scrambles for a way to solve this problem, until he finds a glass of water. He places the glass of water in front of the message, and when he looks through it, the words “Room 17” appear and a door opens. Radcliffe opens this door, and he finds mountains of fruits and dried meats. Radcliffe then leaves a note asking for farming equipment. 

Setting: The castle (the next day)

Narrator: Adus the one who left the original note, answers back to Radcliffes request. He reveals to Radcliffe the real reason behind “the great famine of gregoria”. (That the coin of life’s absence is the reason behind the famine.) Adus also tells Radcliffe to meet him outside the local bakery at dusk. 

Setting: The town of gregoria (the following day) (at dusk)

Radcliffe: Where is this guy?

(Adus enters):

Radcliffe: Hello? Adus?

Adus: Hello young Radcliffe, it’s good to finally make of your aquatince.

Radcliffe: What is it that you wanted to tell me?

Adus: Alright, I guess we’ll cut to the chase…

Adus: The strange weather and the dying crops, that’s no coincidence.

Radcliffe: What are you saying?

Adus: Many years ago an unruly entity cursed this town. So an ancient sorcerer created a piece of technology that would forever maintain the serenity and peacefulness of Gregoria. (If not revoked). 

Radcliffe: So you’re saying that the reason behind all of this is some device went missing?

Adus: A coin precisely, the coin of life.

Radcliffe: How did it go missing in the first place?

Adus: The king, he irresponsibly gambled it away.

Radcliffe: That’s sounds like something that he would do. El bozo.

Adus: El bozo indeed.

Radcliffe: How do we get it back?

Adus: King Julian’s castle, he’s the one who won it from King Gregory. 

Radcliffe: Well, let’s get it then. 

Adus: One problem though. King Julian’s fortress is heavily guarded.

Radcliffe: We have you though. Aren’t you some wizard or something.

Adus: Sorcerer. And yes I might be able to pull it off, but still it’s risky.

Radcliffe: When should we go?

Adus: As soon as possible, this town may not survive this famine any longer.

Adus: Meet me tomorrow, same spot.

Setting: The town of gregoria (the following day…)

Adus: You ready for this? 

Radcliffe: As ready as I can be I guess..

Adus: That’s good enough for me.

Narrator: The two then start the 2 day long trip to Julian’s castle…

Setting: Outside Julian’s castle.

Adus: You ready?

Radcliffe: Maybe?

Adus: Look what I brought.

Radcliffe: What’s this for?

Adus: A disguise. I told you this place was hard to get in.

Radcliffe: Where’s mine? We’re both doing this right? What are you dressed as exactly?

Adus: Sorry, my grandma could only make one. And I’m supposed to be a musician 

Radcliffe: Whatever..

Narrator: Radcliffe and Adus then go to the castles entrance

Radcliffe: Oh shoot, there’s a guard. What do we do?

Adus: Just stay cool. My plan will work.

Guard: What have got here?

Adus: Just musicians, we were requested by King Julian.

Guard: You look like a musician, but not your friend here.

Adus: We’re musicians 

Guard: Let’s hear something then

Radcliffe: What do you mean?

Guard: Let’s hear a song.

(Adus and Radcliffe panic):

Adus: What do we do?

Radcliffe: I know this song that I used to sing as a kid.

Adus: Ok, just roll with that then.

(Radcliffe starts singing:)

Winter’s on the wing,

Here’s a fine spring morn’

Comin’ clear through the night,

Come the day I say.

Winter’s taken flight

Sweepin’ dark cold air

Out to sea, Spring is born,

Comes the day say I….

(More song)

Radcliffe: There’s your song. Happy now?

Guard: Yeah I guess you are musicians after all. You may pass.

(Radcliffe and Adus enter the castle)

Radcliffe: Well that was a close one.

Adus: It sure was.

Radcliffe: So, where’s this coin?

Adus: I sense that it’s at the king’s party

Radcliffe: Why would it be there?

Adus: Not sure. But my senses are never wrong.

Narrator: (Adus and Radcliffe make their way to the party room) (Their disguise lets them move without suspicion).

Setting: King Julian’s party)

Radcliffe: You see it?

Adus: There. On that sculpture.

Radcliffe: How do we take it in plain sight?

Adus: I have an idea. Grab the flowers from that vase.

Radcliffe: Ok?

(Narrator: Adus proceeds to create an exact replica of the coin, by transfixing other objects from the party into the coin.)

Radcliffe: Now we just have to swap them.

Adus: Yeah, the hardest part. 

Radcliffe: I have an idea. Use your powers to push the sculpture over, I’ll distract the guests, and you get the coin.

Adus: Ok sounds like a plan. 

Narrator: (Adus proceeds to push the sculpture over using his powers) (Radcliffe distracts party guests)

Narrator: They then return back to Gregoria with the coin, as soon as they’re back life in the town goes back to normal, the weather goes from bad to good and the crops grow back. Gregory was dethroned after the town found out what he had done and replaced him with Adus and as for Radcliffe, well he just kept doing teenager things. 

 

THE END!!!

Once everyone got back from vacation, we did our first dress rehearsal. It wasn’t much of a dress rehearsal thought, because we didn’t have anything except for the story and the script. So we got to work on creating the solution. We came up with the idea of having two different paintings on on a wooden frame, and then putting it on a dolly so it could be turned around easily. Max got to building that, Mateo researched the illusion, Ines researched the costume transformation, and me and Dylan researched team choice elements. 

After a lot of time spent after school creating the deliverable, it was time for our second dress rehearsal. We had a lot more stuff now, but because we spent all of the time building it and none of the time practicing, it didn’t go smoothly. After that rehearsal, we practiced a lot and got everything pretty smooth. 

Then spring break came around. No one in our group gave a thought about DI for two weeks. It was bliss….

The next five days before the tournament was spent finalizing everything and preparing. 

Finally, it was the day of the tournament. We everyone got there 30 minutes early and it was spent preparing everything. We got into the room and the performance begun…

(Thank you Max and his family for recording this)

Not everything was done though. We still had the instant challenge. Unfortunately, due to copyright reasons, I cannot discuss it here. I can however tell you that it went pretty well. It would have gone a lot better if we had more time to perform, however, our performance was cut short by the two minute timer. Here is the feedback we received from the appraisers on our main challenge. 

This project was not my favourite. It was long and tedious, and I procrastinated a lot. But looking back on it, it was a good project and I learned a lot from it. I learned more about deadlines, and doing work that I don’t want to do, about working better with people that I didn’t know how to work with previously, and it taught me a lot about what adult life is going to be. It feels so good to have this project over with. The performance was pretty fun too. 

Thank you a lot for reading my blog post on Destination Imagination. Again, you can check out my group mates blogs here. Max, Ines, Mateo, and Dylan. See you next time.

Bye. 

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