Destination Complication

The last time I talked about Destination Imagination on this page, I was reflecting on last year’s performance and how I dressed up as a fairy and pranced around stage. This year things went a little different, and that’s what I’m here to talk about; Destination Imagination 2018. Coming in to this year’s competition, we started prepping much earlier than we did last year. Instead of waiting until the new year to get going, we were introduced to and even chose our challenge. The challenges this year were still of the same categories, but they had changed quite a bit in terms of the actual purpose/goal of the challenge. My group consisted of Marshall, Luca OG, Adlih, Melika, Kailey and myself. We were all a part of the ‘Scientific’ challenge. Our challenge was to create an attraction of some sort (i.e. carousel, rollercoaster) in an unlikely location. So basically we had to make a ride that was in a location a ride normally wouldn’t be in. We had all chosen to be in this challenge – to some extent anyways – so we knew what we were getting ourselves in to.

Preparation for DI involved a lot of worksheets and activities. For instance, we had to write down dozens of random ideas of what our location could be as part of a brainstorming exercise. Honestly, everyone thought that these exercises were a waste of time we could have been using for something more productive, but I guess they were worth it seeing as our actual idea derived from these exercises. We eventually settled on our location; in a dream, on the magical planet of Phoebe. I figured it was best to choose something nice and squishy the DI judges would adore. As much as I hate putting on a super upbeat, happy, almost immature act, I knew it would be in my best interest to do so, especially if I wanted to succeed.

From then on it was basically just more exercises until we had our whole idea planned out. I’m not gonna lie, I can’t remember the exact timeline of how things went with this whole preparation, but I do remember that shortly after we had our whole presentation idea sorted out, Adlih went home and banged out an amazing script. I find it extremely helpful when someone takes initiative like that and completes something that can really be used as a building block going forward. So Adlih definitely deserves props there. That script helped shape the timeline we put in place for later on. Now that we had the script done, focusing on building the set and props was our main priority.

Me, Marshall and Luca OG took the role of creating the attraction; a real life fidget spinner that someone would stand on and spin around. We thought this one out in the sense that we knew taking on a more complex attraction would fail, so we decided it was best to keep things simpler, knowing we could execute. We all went to Rona one weekend and bought all the supplies. Over the last couple years of doing it, one thing I have found with DI is that creating a list of materials for a completely fictional product is nearly impossible. We tried to come up with a list prior to shopping but obviously we weren’t actually building a sized up fidget spinner with bearings and everything, that would be impossible. So, we had to improvise. Luca OG had a really good image in his mind of what he wanted it to look like, so me and Marshall hung back and sort of let him do his thing. Eventually he explained it to us and we were on board with his idea. I won’t get too much in to the details of the materials but basically we took two sheets of plywood, pit swiveling wheels on one, attached a long screw to the centre of it, then fastened a nut to the centre of the other sheet. This would allow the screw to sit in the nut loosely. This was to keep the top sheet of plywood from spinning around randomly. This used centripetal force, implementing a couple of our scientific concepts; gravity and Newton’s laws of motion. A couple weeks later we added the actual fidget spinner cutout which was made out of another sheet of plywood. It sounds super complicated, and that may not have made sense, but hey, our team is called the Blatherskites for a reason.

Alright, enough of the creating, let’s talk about the actual performance. So, our presentation was about a boy named Richard (played by me) who falls asleep in class during a lesson on electricity. In his dream, he is transported to the magical planet of Phoebe were he meets Rivi, Remmy, Roka, and Rocco. They run a dreamland full of attractions. Richard is amazed by this place and asks to ride the fidget spinner he sees. However, there is a test he must complete before getting to ride. As he leaves with Roka, a mysterious character appears. He is confronted by Remmy and reveals himself as Millard. Little do they know, he is trying to steal the magic from the dreamland. Millard is given a tour of the park while Richard takes the scientific safety test. This is where he describes three scientific concepts; Electricity, Newton’s laws of motion, and gravity. While this is going on, Millard steals the magic and runs off. Richard then finds him alone and they discuss why he stole it. Millard talks about his past experience with the dreamland and how he wasn’t noticed, he apologizes and returns the magic. He then gets to ride the attraction and all is well. Richard wakes up in the middle of class with an Electricity test in front of him. Thanks to the help of those in the dreamland, he aces the test.

Now that you know what our presentations all about, I’ll let you know how our team did at Regionals. All of our team was extremely confident in everything we presented. Our main challenge went super well and everyone we heard from was very impressed. Later on in the day we completed our instant challenge and it too went very well. Our teamwork was really good, and our ideas were smart and thought out, while also creative. Overall we felt really confident in ourselves at the end of both our main and instant challenge. However, when it came time for awards, we weren’t as happy. We placed third in our main challenge which we later found out was due to the fact that we were given 0 points on one of our team choice elements. This was because we double-dipped and used our original soundtrack as a team choice element and as our sound production. We still came third though, so all I can think of is how much higher we could’ve scored had we had a second team choice element. This means that for Provincials we need to create a team choice element, and in fact, we already have and are starting to create it. We know that as a team we performed really well and achieved our goals. I’m looking forward to Provincials where we will hopefully match our scores from last year; 1st in both challenges.