DI, DI, DI. That’s been my past few months. Ive done Destination Imagination in the previous years and you can check out my posts for them here. (DI grade 8, DI grade 9.) My goal for this years DI was to learn something big and new. And well, I did that while being reminded of important other skills which ill go in to depth later. If you want to learn more about Destination Imagination and see why they are doing these tournaments, check out this link. 

WHAT IS IT?

This year’s DI I was given the group consisting of Isabelle, Melika, Logan, Daniel and Jamie. We had the technical challenge, ON TARGET! The point of this challenge was to have a aircraft that could carry payloads across the stage while having a story that incorporate the other factors well and uniquely. So, instead of breaking down each little thing my group did and how we did it, watch the video of the presentation then I’ll explain what I created and what I learned from it. 

THE PRESENTATION

WHAT I TOOK FROM IT

I’m going to breakdown some parts of the presentation I worked on and what I left from creating them. First, the script. This wasn’t actually my job to write it, but I ended up doing it for… some reason. Well at first we had a script that Isy wrote but I had to reword everything to make it shorter, faster to the main point, and simpler. Script writing always strengthens my patience and wow they take a long time. They aren’t necessarily hard to write, just time consuming and you have to make sure you’re timing it, reading it aloud, and making sure all the words flow together like its not a scripted presentation (which it is.) 

Another aspect of this experience I learned from was the assignment of roles. I discussed this in my PGP, and in my DI self assessment, but I’ll go over it here too. The part I think we failed at the most was the consistency in everyone’s individuals dedication and time given for DI. Some were spending weeks working everyday after school, and others didn’t really do anything. This is one of the most frustrating experiences Ive ever had as when someone promises me and says they CAN do something, I believe them. And when it doesn’t happen, and there isn’t time to fix it, its kind of “heartbreaking.” This teaches me to not always fully trust others with extremely important tasks even if they volunteer and promise to do it. 

Something I also learnt from, is that not leaving things last minute, is….. AMAZING. Isy, Melika and I had done the costumes, script, backdrop, props, and more all before the week of. Coming into the week before DI is already stressful enough, and having all the things done beside the aircraft made me feel a little better. The girls including me did well on time management, and we made sure to have it all done before the week of so we could practice with everything. I’d definitely use this same technique for anything similar to DI in the future as it lets you focus on other things while still having something important going on.

OVERALL REFLECTION 

Although we won first place, I wouldn’t call this DI a full victory. We never ended up creating a aircraft, and that was half the marks so realistically beside the first place, we didn’t complete the challenge. I hope for provincials we can get it all together and finished (I’ll update you in the DI provincials post.) Im happy with myself in the aspect of I went into DI with a positive attitude, and although not getting the challenge I wanted (scientific) I rolled with it and tried to enjoy it. This DI was definitely the hardest for me out of all 3 years as I was frustrated, worked a lot and still didn’t have a fully working presentation. If I was to redo this whole DI experience I would make the aircraft a group challenge instead of only half the group working on it. This might have resulted in lower quality script, story and backdrop but at the end of the day the aircraft is more important that any of those. 

Looking forward but stressed for provincials. I’ll update you once the day comes!