On January 10th (50 days until Regionals), I was thrown into a group with Griffin, Lucas, Jack, and Cole. Going into my second year of Destination Imagination, I knew it would be difficult yet rewarding, and I was ready to move forward.
Early on, I took note of our strengths and challenges. We had creative ideas, but execution would be a struggle. With effort and collaboration, we could build something great.
We started with the story, one of my favourite methods for brainstorming is rapid-fire idea generation. After bouncing around many different concepts, we landed on Rocky but with a key difference: what if he lost to Apollo Creed in the first movie? That set the stage for our challenge, forcing us to design solutions that fit a gritty, 1970s world, no modern tech, only manual mechanics.
Everything seemed on track. Until it wasn’t.
Six days before Regionals, we still had nothing built. We had ideas for our Destruction and Assembly Equipment, but no prototypes. Monday hit, and we finally got to work. The push was slow, but by Thursday, we had most of our crane and stack items built. Jack had been away all week but jumped in to lead the Assembly Equipment.
With no Maker time left, I stayed after school with Griffin and Lucas to finish what we could. Griffin and I tackled the Destruction Equipment, while Lucas put a ton of effort into our sign, which turned out awesome.

The morning of the tournament, I arrived at 08:00 and started assembling stack items. As the others arrived, we made last-minute tweaks and rehearsed. With four hours left before our challenge, we started losing focus. I stepped in, bringing us more together, finalizing adjustments, then running a full rehearsal.
The challenge itself? It was okay. Not our best, but I was proud of what we pulled together in 50 days. And despite Griffin and I worrying we wouldn’t even place, we took 2nd at Regionals. Now, with 34 days until Provincials, we’re coming back stronger.
(Next time I will take more photos. I promise.)
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