Introduction/what is D.I?
In this blog post, I will go over how this year’s Destination Imagination regional tournament, the challenges we faced, how we overcame them (or didn’t) and also our final presentation. But before we do that, you should know what D.I is! D.I stands for destination imagination, and it is a global non profit organization dedicated to (As they explain) inspiring the next generation of innovators. You can read more about them on their official website here. In DI you are scored points off of main challenges, each with their own categories, my group’s challenge was the technical one, where we had to build a machine that could stack blocks, and then build another machine to destroy them. The other main challenge every team faces is the instant challenge, which is when a team is brought into a room to solve a task that they have no background information of, everything is confidential in an instant challenge so I can’t say what we did!
What went well?
Now, starting with what went well, our group focused heavily on our story element, rather than our machine, we made and polished a story to the point we were happy with, this proved to be a good idea because the machine was very hard to do! So we figured going for more points on the story was easier than getting more points on the machine. We did still make a good destruction machine, but our stacking machine wasn’t looking to good (more on that later.) Another thing that went well was our instant challenge, we ended up getting 1st place in the instant challenge category which was done through our good team work! We all listened and agreed on ideas to come out with our best product we could produce! This also amazingly worked for our Technical challenge, where we also got 1st place in our age group!Â
What could we improve for the provincial tournament?
For the upcoming provincial tournament on April 12, there are a few things we need to overhaul, one of which being a huge part in the contest, which is our assembly machine. We ended up getting 0 points on our assembly machine as we used it just outside of the assembly zone! Next time, we will double check to make sure it is in the proper area, but we also might need to make our props look better! Right now, our props are just cardboard with a bit of paint on them, our props were displaced and destroyed just a few days before the regional tournament and we had to improvise! From now to the time of the provincial tournament, my group plans to refurbish these props by painting them, making them sturdy and prop-er.
Our challenge and presentation
As a recap, my group was in the technical category where we had to build a machine which could stack objects, and then build a separate machine that could destroy the stacked items. My group used the team choice elements of “gladiators” and “music”. Our presentation was about modern day gladiators competing in a fictional game of “stackdown” which is a prestigious game of stacking and destroying objects quicker than your opponent! Sadly we don’t have any videos of our presentation.
Conclusion
In the end, my group has worked well together, despite it seeming like we didn’t have enough time. We overcame the challenges we faced and are ready for the upcoming provincial tournament (where we will perform even better than we did the last time!)
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