And we are back with another edition of DI! This has been my 2nd year of doing DI, with 2 performances per year. This post is going to be all about our provincial performance from this year.

To check out the details from my regional performance, click here!

As you may have seen/ read, our regional performance didn’t go exactly how we wanted it to. In the end, there were a few positives that we took away from it, but our group knew there was lots of work that had to be done in the 1 month 3 day span between the regional competition and the provincials. I think Mr. Hughes said it best when he said (I’m paraphrasing here) “ in a way, K-NEAT is in an enviable position because they knew exactly what went wrong and how they can fix it.”

Boom, Bing, Bap and we were on our way.

One thing that we did that I felt really helped us out was looking at our raw scores. This meant the points that we scored in each category of our challenge. Believe me, there were a lot. Then, we looked at the maximum amount of points that one could have scored in that category. Then, we could see where we lost the most points.

For our group, we knew right away where we were lacking points, but it was good to double check. It made it easier to clean up any glaring mistakes or even small categories that we needed to clean up on. Here’s an example of what our charts looked like.

When doing this, we also set goals for how much we wanted to improve our score in each category. Our group had high goals of improving our special effect and also making the special effect more dramatic and theatrical. There was lots of opportunity for improvements in our group.

Then, it was all about revision. Our group met up a few times over spring break to discuss improvements. I couldn’t be there due to a golf tournament, but from what I’ve heard it was beneficial.

As usual, the weeks before DI passed quickly. This meant the inevitable time crunch and stressful moments before the day of. Then, disaster struck for me and my time. Here’s what happened.

For DI, your challenge time is scheduled by the people behind the whole organization. This means the teams have no control over the times they present. This generally means each team has to be there for a full day. Earlier that year, I found out I had an important golf tournament on the day of DI. I thought this was going to be no problem. I would do my challenge in the morning and then go play golf in the afternoon. I just assumed our group would be presenting in the morning or at least early afternoon, just because most teams are.

However, this is where I ran into trouble. I was scheduled to tee off at around 2:15, meaning I would like to have been at the golf course at 1:30 ish. But, on the Wednesday before DI, our group found out our challenge time was at 3:00. This meant there was no chance I could have been there. I prioritized golf over this because this tournament is a key factor in order to qualify for the B.C. Junior, which is a tournament for the best juniors in B.C. that are under 18. Ultimately, I chose to play golf.

In our play, I have a main character role. I have the most lines and I felt I brought a lot to the team. I felt really bad letting my team down, especially this far along in the process. I felt it was only right to be there every step of the way until I had to leave. That week, I grinded every day after school with the team and got as much done as we could.

I went to the host school, Collingwood, with the team on that morning. I helped assemble props properly and then we had our classic parade into the gym. But, right after that, I left. Our instant challenge wasn’t til later and there was no purpose of me being there.

From what I heard, my team improvised really well and I’m proud of how they managed to deal with the setbacks that they were faced. Although there were a few minor problems with the special effect, it sounded like our team did really well considering the circumstances. Check out my team’s performance ⬇️

From what I saw in the video, we struggled with weight placement and a few other things like activating the music for our team choice element. We ended coming 2nd, which was more than we were expecting. It was a positive finish to the DI year.

In terms of my golf tournament, I thought I played ok. I shot a 75 in the demoralizing rain and finished in a tie for 13th.

I had a bit of a rough finish and just didn’t really hit the ball as well as I wanted to.

This my last DI performance of the year. It was a stressful experience which had some entertaining and fun moments. I really enjoyed working with my group and I’m proud of the way we meshed together and found a solution.

This will wrap up this post.

Until next time,

Nik