Hey! Welcome back. I’ve been reflecting on our last assignment and have been STRONGLY encouraged to write a blog post about it. Actually I didn’t have a choice but I’m going about it with a positive attitude, much like how I approached the destination imagination project. The destination imagination challenge or as its almost always called, DI, is pretty much a series of challenges that you can select and have to find a creative solution to. There are 7 different challenges to select from and all of them are super different but all have some similarities. Almost every challenge has 2 different team choice elements and is centred around a story with props as well as a script. The exception here is the improv challenge. If you want to learn more about these challenges I’ll link all the challenges here. Improv, fine arts, medical, engineering, service, technical. Obviously the fine arts is the best, so naturally Noah, Lauren, Jude, Kaia and I, all teamed up to FORM THE ULTIMATE DESTINATION IMAGINATION TEAM. (Cue~music)

 

Our challenge was super difficult and also the most competitive (meaning the most teams were entered into this challenge compared to the other challenges) It was super interesting trying to come up with a challenge solution and I valued the opportunity to learn more about those areas for me that need improvement. The biggest lesson I learned was that if you think someone is going to make a mistake, trust your instincts and help them to find a way to solidify their explanation or their way to solve the problem. Sometimes people need someone there to hold them accountable and sometimes you have to trust that they got it. Asking them what their preferences are is the easiest way for you to help push them in the right direction. Sometimes mistakes are make and it’s important to reflect and remember how you can use it, as a team to improve next time.

The start of our project was a little shaky. We were excited to start but were afraid to mess up. So we began filling in forms assigned by our teacher and at first we thought that it was a little redundant or unnecessary. As we moved along, we started understanding why they were so important. Here are some examples and see if you can see where I’m coming from. <incert examples> So those seem kinda boring but honestly they were very important and without them I believe the first stage would be much more shaky. 

(Photos of the stages) The process of completing the steps and the challenges within each step was a very crucial part of our DI journey. The first stage was my least favourite but was the most important. It was the first step in our destination imagination journey. The most important stage looking back, was assess. The rest of the stages were important but without assess we would have been at a definite disadvantage. The process of going through the stages was very important. It gave us the much needed guidance to get through our challenge solution. In summary, the steps were not the most interesting but they were very important to the success of our solution. 

I liked the challenge of working in a group of people where I didn’t get along with everyone. It was hard but I like knowing now that I have the skills to persevere and put into practice the skills I have learned from a book assignmed to my class.

Working up to the day of the tournament, most of my group was very dedicated with a few exceptions. We had good teamwork and that lead to the majority of our props being done early. The script needed revision but that was done as soon as possible and we ended up with a script we were very proud of. One of our components was a container and that was done early, thanks to Noah. It was painted and assembled all super early and definitely on time. Our technical elements had a hiccough in the production but we did have a, somewhat, working Plumbob for the day of the tournament. The light turned on at first but it cycled through about 10 colours instead of switching on command, from two. It also turned off early due to the code running out but that will be fixed for provincials. The forms helped us achieve all of these goals and some goals we weren’t even expecting to accomplish.

About a week before the tournament we started stressing quite a bit. It was mostly about the Plumbob and remembering our lines. It all came to fruition on time but only thanks to our team managers. I have them to thank for our final project. They encouraged s and helped us asses our priorities throughout the whole project.

Now, on to the day of the tournament. We were all there by 8:15 and made sure all our final touches were there and nothing was forgotten. At 8:30 there was a parade where we marched through the gym with team signs. This part taught me to be proud of my work and be confident in the effort I have devoted to this challenge. We had some announcements that then lead to us being dismissed. We went and watched Mechanica’s group who was doing the technical challenge (it was fantastic) then meandered back over to our station to do final rehearsals and put costumes on. This part was stressful but it could have been much worse. Then we did our performance and honestly it was kind of a blur. When I was rewatching it,  I thought it went well. There were a few mistakes but that is to be expected. I was so proud of my group and all the work we did and i was extremely glad to be a part of it. 

After that it was almost done for our team but we did an instant challenge about 45 minutes later  and my group thought we communicated super well. Overall we were proud of what we did but there was definitely room for improvement. 

So after all of that, we went to watch other challenges to get our minds of it and get dome more inspiration for provincials. We saw some pretty great performances and we are definitely steeling some ideas for our next shot at our solution. Hehe 😉 

Now onto the results. Here are our ‘raw’ scores and our final scores. We were a bit disappointed with how our challenge solution stacked up but we still got fourth. Not too bad but not as well as we were expecting. We were a little bit confused why they didn’t like that we did an electronic game but we took a risk and wouldn’t trade it for the win. Or at least I wouldn’t. I shouldn’t speak for our whole team. 😀 

Despite all the challenges, I’m super proud of my team and how we worked together. I think we all learned loads.

THE END!