So, we had a challenge. How will we overcome it? How can we use quick and critical thinking. Will we fail? Welcome to Destination Imagination (DI).

What is Destination Imagination? DI is a global non-profit organization that inspires the next generation of people to overcome challenges and problem solve. It helps improve skills in critical thinking and teamwork.  If you want to read more about it click here.

Because of COVID-19 this year, DI was a lot different than it would be normally. Instead of performing our solution live, we had to make a video. There was advantages and disadvantages to this. An advantage was that we could edit and take multiple shots and mess up and it wouldn’t really matter. A disadvantage was that it was hard to find a quiet place to film and it takes much longer because you have outtakes and mess ups. Also it was really hard to edit the video because I had to find all the right clips and edit out noises. I also had to record over some parts because the audio was bad. 

When we were first introduced to DI I remembered that I had done some cool things inspired by DI in elementary school. We were informed about all of the challenges that we could do. We did a survey to show which challenge we wanted to solve. I did the Fine Arts Challenge. Our challenge was that we had to create a music video that retells a part or a full piece of literature. We had to make our own music and lyrics. We also had to design and create a costume that helps influence our video. It was pretty daunting.

Our team decided to be called the Narnians because we thought we would choose The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe for our piece of literature. That ended up not being our piece. Instead we decided to choose Alices Adventures in Wonderland.

 We did the tea party scene with Alice, the Mad Hatter, and the rabbit. We added some roles to get everybody in the shot like the Cheshire Cat and some dancing flowers. We assigned roles, and I was playing Alice. We started writing the lyrics and the song. For our big costume, we decided to focus on Alices dress. 

Teamwork is a big part of DI and it is much harder than I thought. It is very hard to work together when everybody has different opinions and ways to deal with obstacles. It was also very hard to find a time outside of school where all of our members could be present. 

I think it is impossible to go through DI without any challenges. Our team had many. We ran into a problem when we realized our costume was wrong and wouldn’t work. That was a small problem and it was easy to fix. Our biggest problem was that after I had finished editing the video, it wouldn’t export. It was 10:00 at night and I was freaking out because it had to be ready to export in the morning and nothing was working. I decided t come in early the next day to figure something out. I ended up having to re-edit the whole video on the computer in our class. I got it done but the audio was a bit patchy and it was not as good as my first edit. 

Our team started off really string and then through the middle we started to crumble. We all used the joke that we would F.A.I.L.. F.A.I.L. stands for first attempt in learning. When we finished our video, we were pleasantly surprised by the outcome. I am proud of what we accomplished based on all the problems we ran into.

Unfortunately I cant post our final video on my blog right now because it is still being appraised. I will update this post with our final video when I can. Update!! Here it is along with our Q and A video!!

While we didn’t win anything, I am still proud of our team overcoming our problems.

The most important thing I learned was that communication is key. If I was to do it again, my team would start every meeting with a check in about how we are feeling we are doing and what isn’t working.

We also made a team sign that looks awesome and whimsical like Wonderland. There are many colours and patterns on it.  

This was a very challenging project but I am glad of what we came up with. Even though through the whole time was ball of stress and anxiety. Was it worth it……yes. I did have a lot of fun in between the AHHH moments.

You should check out my teams posts about DI:  Landon, Dana, Cole, Ben, Gabi and Sara.

Thanks for reading!

✌️bye.