Would you believe me if I said I came first in a Regional school competition, that we had to improvise half of? Well you better, because we did. This is the story of my Destination Imagination regional tournament that we did as a part of PLP.
This project took place over a few months, during which we worked in and out of school to create a machine that fit certain dimensions, did certain actions, and went along with a certain story. This story was the backbone to how we were graded during the actual performance during DI, so it was important that the story was realistic, and original. As a group we realized this early on in the process of preparing for DI (Building machine, building backdrops, making costumes, making the story etc.),meaning we were more prepared than the other groups in our challenge were. However, we had one disadvantage that showed itself a week before our Di Regional.
Our disadvantage was how us Gr9s had 0 experience in this tournament, and the Gr10s in our group, one week out of competition, decided not to come. This was a big problem. They had a bunch of our supplies from the presentation. This left us with 4 team members instead of 6. This was bad news for us because this left us totally inexperienced, and nervous with only about half of our supplies. Despite all of these setbacks, we made it work. With what we had we put together a 7 minute presentation that really represent our group and our ideas, and that we believed exceeded the expectations of our teachers, peers, and even the DI judges.
After our main DI presentation we had to wait until the second part of DI was ready for us, our instant challenge. Leading up to the instant challenge we had no clue what it was going to be. It could have been anything from building a tower out of our shoes, to making a full play. During the time between our presentation and our instant challenge we went around and watched other people’s performances to scout out our competition. We also discussed among our team the game plan for the instant challenge and how we could prepare for it. I’m not allowed to talk about the instant challenge, but I can say that it required all of us to work as one team to produce a solution.
Despite the setbacks and challenges we faced leading up to the regional tournament, our hard work and determination paid off. We were able to come together as a team, think on our feet, and push through the obstacles to deliver a successful performance in both the main DI presentation and the instant challenge. The experience taught us valuable lessons in teamwork, resilience, and creativity. In the end, we were proud of what we accomplished. Heading into the regional tournament, we were nervous but excited to showcase our skills and compete against other schools. We are excited to be recognized for our hard work and dedication with a first-place finish in the regional competition.
Overall, our experience in the Destination Imagination regional tournament was challenging but rewarding. We look forward to taking what we learned from this experience and applying it to future challenges, especially to provincials on April 6.