Hi!

I’m back with another DI blog post, and sadly this is likely the last one I will ever write. ☹️

However, I do have some great things to report on regarding the provincial Destination Imagination tournament. As stated before, I wasn’t able to be there for the regional tournament, and sadly I wasn’t able to be there for the provincial one either due to the Seycove Senior Music trip. This doesn’t mean I couldn’t contribute; it just means that I had to get creative with how I could. As stated in my first post, the first step I took to making sure I was involved was adding the AI character into the script and recording my voice. Even if I wasn’t there, I was in a way.

I found it difficult throughout this project to figure out how much to involve myself. On one hand, I was going to be away for both tournaments, and it was important to me to give our grade 9s the space to be leaders, and on the other, I am an overachiever. Let’s take a closer look:

What went well:

• Giving other people the space to lead. I’ve known myself to be pushy in the past in group projects because my groups didn’t have what it took to create something I’d be proud of. This year I was lucky to be with a group that I could trust to contribute meaningfully instead of disappearing the second something needed to be done. This completely changed the way I think about group work; finally, I could rely on my group members!
• I figured out how to be a part of the group while not being there. As part of our solution, my group made up an AI character that I voiced. They then played a recording of my voice at the tournament, which the appraisers loved and kept me involved.
• I rewrote our script when we looked at our scores after regionals and realised that our technobabble depictor. While Finn made a robot for us (shout-out to Finn for making a robot in like 5 days), I rewrote our story to include it. This was another good way for me to contribute when I couldn’t actually be there.

Areas for Improvement:

• contributing more, earlier on. At the beginning of DI, I was working on a lot in other classes, which meant I didn’t contribute as much as I could have. Next time I would try to meet up with my group more at the beginning. We struggled with our story a bit, which took up valuable time, and I wish we had finished it earlier so we would have had more time on the go.
• My own confidence. At points I didn’t share my ideas because I was worried that they would be considered silly or stupid. If I hadn’t done this, I could have been a better role model, and our presentation could have been better.
• Considering all the elements from the beginning. A big part of our feedback from the first tournament was that we were missing our technobabble depictor. Obviously missing an entire component impacts your score a lot. If we had considered this earlier, we could have taken the time to understand what we were supposed to make. Instead we went full steam ahead with other elements.
• I think my group as a whole could have more flexibility. Even though we talked about it in our team contract, at points group members (including me) weren’t as open to others ideas as we could have been.

Overall, this year’s DI run was a big point of growth for me. It showed me how to take a step back, how to contribute what I can and know my limits, connect with people across grades, manage a capable team, and continue to gain confidence when sharing my ideas.

Thank you so much to all my group members, I couldn’t have asked for a better team!!!!

Until next time!

Neko