Tag: destination Imagination

Destination Imagination: 💭

Posted on by elsaw

Stacking Blocks and Life Lessons: What I Learned Destination Imagination

Hello and welcome to my blog. This post is about my latest experience with Destination Imagination (DI). 

This year, I had the absolute chaos-filled joy of competing in Destination Imagination (again) with my team, The Block Busters (yes, we had the best name). (I also barely managed to escape with my life and quite a few battle scars).

Our challenge was a technical one: build up a structure using technical methods, and then use completely different methods to tear it down. It was like the ultimate engineering-meets-destruction test. And if that doesn’t sound cool to you, then I don’t know what does.

We spent months planning, building, testing, re-building, and occasionally watching everything collapse way before it was supposed to. It was frustrating. It was messy. It was also kind of amazing.

Regional Tournament: The Plot Twist

For our regional tournament, we showed up so prepared. We had rehearsed like mad scientists. Our stack was solid, our teardown method worked (well, most of the time), and our skit tied everything together in a way we thought was super clever. We were pumped. Then we got our results. Let’s just say… we didn’t place where we thought we would. And yeah, it stung a little. Okay, it stung a lot. We had worked so hard! What did we miss? But instead of giving up or sulking too long, we took it as a sign: we could do better. So we leveled up.

Provincial Tournament: DĂŠjĂ  Vu with Duct Tape

For the provincial tournament, we brought our A-game—and then some. We made our structure stronger, made our teardown flashier, improved our skit, and worked even more tightly as a team. We pushed ourselves creatively and technically. We were in it to win it. And then… we got the same placement.

At first? Super frustrating. Like “scream-into-a-pillow” frustrating. It felt like all our effort didn’t show up in the scores. But then something clicked for me.

What I Actually Learned

Sure, I had wanted a trophy. But what I got instead was something better (okay, maybe not shinier, but definitely more valuable):

  • Persistence matters. We kept going when it would’ve been easy to stop. We didn’t just accept our first result—we worked harder to improve.
  • Teamwork is everything. The Block Busters became more than just a team name—we were a unit. We learned how to support each other under pressure, how to solve problems together, and how to laugh through the disasters (looking at you, duct tape mishap #47).
  • You can’t control the outcome—but you can control the effort. The rankings didn’t reflect how much we grew, but we know how far we came. And that’s something no score can measure.
  • Creativity doesn’t always fit inside a scoring rubric. We took risks. We tried big ideas. And even if those didn’t pay off on paper, they meant something to us.

In the end, I’m walking away from this experience with skills I never expected to build—from quick thinking and engineering to collaboration and self-confidence. And honestly? I’m proud of the work we did. We built something awesome. And yeah, we smashed it too (literally and metaphorically).

We were The Block Busters. And next year I’ll be part of a brand new team (hopefully battle scar free)

(And glitter. I’m still voting for glitter.)

Destination Imagination!

Posted on by elsaw

Hi and welcome back to my blog post! In this post, you’ll be learning about my first experience with Destination Imagination (DI). Destination Imagination is a world wide (if you make it to global’s) tournament that tests your team work, critical thinking, and creative skills. At the beginning you are put in a team group. I was in a group with 4 other amazing people (I will link their blogs down below). When you are settled in your group, the team manager (a teacher or parent) tells you about your task. I was placed in the scientific challenge. 

The challenge:

A broken jar, a bit of stone—the remains of the past are all around us. Have you ever wondered what those things might have been used for or what they meant to the people who made them? What archaeological mysteries will be revealed in this year’s Scientific Challenge?

-Create and present a story about a character whose discovery of an artifact leads to a finding.

-Include an archaeological investigation that contributes to the finding.

-Design and create a puppet that will portray a character from the past.

-Create and present two Team Choice Elements that show off the team’s interests, skills, areas of strength, and talents.

The building:

For the building aspect of DI, all went really well! Im not supposed to share to much of our solution, but I can say that our props and physical aspect of our challenge went really well!

The performance: 

For the final aspect of our challenge, we preformed using all of our props and solutions as a sort of play. We used the story part to portray a message about a young boys love for science, but he doesn’t quite have approval from his peers. And then we used our physical props to make the story come to life. My team did really well in the performance, and it showed because we won first place! We were prized on our acting skills, and specifically our props, which were made all by scratch and with care. We had three vases, made with Papier-mâché, clay, and chicken wire. Then a puppet (our character from the past) which was made out of a mixture of styrofoam, clay, and cardboard. We also had cool costumes to make our characters pop! And for the last aspect we had 3 different backdrops, which we changed depending on the scene. I think we could improve a bit on our backdrops to make them a bit more clear and detailed, to give our audience more to look at. Also adding a bit more enthusiasm and energy to our performance (this excludes Tyler). But otherwise our performance was top notch! 

IMG_8959 IMG_8959

Overall reflection: 

DI is a fun (for the most part) way to challenge your team works skills and your stress tolerance. It also allows you to do some critical thinking and to use some extra brain power at times. You will have to meet new people and also work well with a group. 

Thanks for reading my blog post! I’m off to spring break, so I won’t post much for the next few weeks! Make sure to check out my groups members blog posts to see their views of DI! 

Chloe:https://www.blog44.ca/chloer/

Tyler:https://www.blog44.ca/tylerm/2024/03/14/di-ing-to-get-it-done-destination-imagination-regionals/

Aidan:https://www.blog44.ca/kieral/

Finnlay:https://www.blog44.ca/finnleyl/