Hello and welcome back to blog. This post is going to be about Destination Imagination, the project we just finished. We actually started Destination Imagination at the start of the year but when your trying to make sure everything’s perfect all that time goes by fast. In this post I will be reflecting on DI and bringing you along while I talk about all the steps we took to get the final presentation.

We started Destination Imagination at the start of the year and got our groups in November. I am super happy with the group I got because I feel like we worked very well together. In my group it was Dana, Declan, Sepaus, Alfie, Ben, and I but then Sylas also joined our group. This meant we were a large group of 7 which had its ups and downs but that didn’t stop us from making a pretty good solution. We were one of the Technical teams which meant that our challenge was to create two devices, one that used electricity and one that didn’t. They both had to overcome the same three hazards. Our challenge also had to include a story with a feat of skill. There were also a bunch of little rules like you can’t be apart of the devices and you can reset the hazards which we kept revisiting to make sure everything was allowed. 

One of the first things that we did was the individual interest inventory sheet. For this you just had to basically answer the questions and rate them, then write your final score at the bottom. This helped our team later on when we were coming up with our team choice elements. The next thing we did was divide the deliverable sheets. These deliverable sheets helped us summarize what parts of our challenge were worth the most points and what we could do to make sure we successfully incorporate everything needed. Throughout the time we were working on this we also tried to keep our basecamp organized. 

This leads me to my next point the team roles and responsibility’s that we came up with as a group. I feel like clarifying and coming up with the roles and responsibility’s really helped our group because then everyone knew what was there job. Everyone on our team contributed to most of the challenge. One of my main roles was to help create our story with the feat of skill, keep track of timing like making sure we get everything done on time and making sure everyone’s on track. I was also in charge of the burn down chart. The burn down chart is basically a chart that includes all the aspects of the challenge. So for our burn down chart it has the two devices, three hazards, story with the feat of skill, and lastly the two team choice elements. My job was to keep updating the chart every few days until we got it from 0% to 100% for all the different sections.

After winter break is when we actually started to plan and build but the very first thing we tried to do is come up with the two devices and plan the rest around them. This was harder then we thought but our original idea was to have a remote control car and a power drill but after connecting that to our story idea and three potential hazards we realized it wouldn’t work. So we continued to think and plan. Our story idea from the start was to have some type of bank robbery. We tried a few different ideas for the devices before coming up with the ones we actually used. We built remote control car for the electric device, and a pulley attached to a skateboard that we ended up building ourselves for the non-electric device. Of course this led to a few more problems but our team did a good job working together to get past all the challenges. 

Ill talk about the building part more along with the hazards since that was one of the main parts. Before I explain details about the building part I have to mention that we could not have succeeded as well as we did at creating the devices without Sylas. Anyways we started building the non-electric device. We had a plan that the pulley would be a standing wooden beam with a clothes line wheel on it and have a handmade skateboard type of thing at the other end to pull through our hazardous hallway (the hazardous hallway being the line of hazards that the devices would overcome). The handmade skateboard that we built was pretty easy for the most part, as it was just a piece of wood attached to some skateboard trucks and wheels. This took quite a lot of time to build as it also needed to be painted. The next device that we built was the electric RC car. To build the car we took apart an already built RC car and only kept the base, then we built a new shell around it to become our money mobile. For our story this had to be able to scoop up and be able to hold money…this part will make more sense later. Then came the time to build our three hazards. There was some debate on what hazards we should build and what to use to build them. In the end we built a tunnel made out of hula hoops and cardboard, uneven terrain built with a cardboard base and some lego, and lastly a trip wire which was meant for the devices to go under. After a few dress rehearsals we had to make some changes as we soon found out one of our devices could not work with a hazard, but that was an easy fix. 

Overall my DI team showed great collaboration and teamwork skills. I think personally I really improved my communication and collaboration skills. I feel like I communicated a lot throughout this project, wether it was an idea I had or if it was me just trying to keep the team on track. Our team ended up beating the other Seycove teams and got Second place! I am super happy with how my team did throughout the last few stressful and fun months. Before you leave don’t forget to check out our presentation at the tournament down below.