Skiing in the arctic, falling through a tree well, an underground society, a spirit from the past, an old engraved vase, a finding that changed the world, these were just some of the things I did on my Saturday afternoon. 

Why was I on this crazy adventure you ask? I preformed all of these things as a part of my solution for Destination Imagination at the regionals tournament.

What is Destination Imagination?

Destination Imagination (DI) is a global academic competition. Teams of all ages develop solutions to challenges and present them live at tournaments. This year we had a choice of 4 challenges, technical, fine arts, engineering, and scientific (my challenge).

My Challenge (Scientific) 

My Solution 

“Luke! Didn’t take you all the way to the arctic just for you to sit and do your little science hobby! Be a real man and come skiing with me” This was the sentence that led to Luke’s great adventure. 

A nerdy boy named Luke goes on a ski trip with his father who doesn’t accept his love for science. While skiing Luke falls through a tree well into a preserved underground city. While exploring, a beautifully engraved vase catches his eye and a spirt from the past floats out of it  to tell him the rich history of the new world Luke has discovered. While trying to leave he hits his head and wakes up outside thinking it was all a dream until he sees the beautiful vase in his hand. Him and his scientist mentor research the vase using relative dating and they find out about the societies matriarchy and how they treated people of all genders equally. This new found information gave woman all over the world motivation that they can do something great, and taught Luke that he didn’t need his dads acceptance for him to feel complete because he has so many other people who fill that void.

 

The video

The Puppet

Our spirit from the past was a princess in soobrooktooth, she was awakened from her vase in which she was trapped in up until Luke found it. Our puppet is manipulated using the traditional rod and arm puppet style, its arm is made from wooden dowels with nails drilled in and string tied in between them to move.  It uses structural engineering to function.

The Artifact

Our ancient embellished vase was discovered in an underground abandoned city in the arctic. We made it out of chicken wire, paper mache and then we finished it off by painting it with a layer of sparkly silver paint.

The Archeological Investigation 

We use relative dating when trying to find out the approxamet  age of our artifact. We used style which is a type of relative dating that studies the different techniques used to create the artifact and compares it to other artifacts and determines if it is older or younger. 

The Day

When the day rolled around i was more stressed than i ever thought i could be. We all met up in the morning, did a few dress rehearsals and then it was our turn. My main stress going into this day was the timing of our presentation. It had to be maximum 8 minutes, but every dress rehearsal we did was largely exceeding that time limit. However, it all worked out in the end when we presented with hardly any mistakes and an almost perfect time. 

What Went Well

I am very proud of the end presentation, our team had very well done props, we worked very hard on them, they didn’t break and they looked exactly how I envisioned them. We were also very well prepared, none of us messed up our lines, we all knew where to be, what to say, and when to say it. 

Fails (First Attempts in Learning)

Nothing anyone has ever done is perfect, there is always somthing to revise and work on. In our solution,  there was some parts of it where you couldn’t tell where Luke was or what he was doing.  Also, we had no way to stand up our puppet, so it was very hard to manoeuvre.

What Did I Learn 

Through this journey I learned a lot about teamwork, collaboration with peers, science, and critical thinking. One thing our team lacked at the beginning of the project was teamwork, we had struggles with all doing an equal amount of work and doing our parts. However, we worked through these struggles, we learned how to communicate our troubles and came through with valuable teamwork skills. Another thing I learned about was science, going into this project i had no knowledge of archeology whatsoever. Destination Imagination compelled me to research about different archeological investigations which made me come through this with lots of new science knowledge. Lastly, I gained lots of new skills in critical thinking, we had problems with the script being too long, the props breaking, the backdrops not hanging, etc, but we worked through all of them. I learned how to problem solve and revise things that needed a second draft.

Destination imagination was made so much better having the team I had, Check out their blogs:

Elsa- https://www.blog44.ca/elsaw/

Aiden- https://www.blog44.ca/kieral/

Chloe- https://www.blog44.ca/chloer/

Finnley- https://www.blog44.ca/finnleyl/

Look out for more blog posts in April as we go into the Provincial Tournament. Thankyou for reading!