What is Destination Imagination?

Destination Imagination is a thrill for your mind!

Imagine that you and a few friends are given a project to complete in 12-15 weeks, without help from anyone outside the team… The project might involve designing and constructing a technical device that must move from point A to point B under its own power. Imagine that you must also write, produce, and star in a story that involves the technical device. You need to make props, costumes, and everything else, and package it into an eight-minute presentation. You pull it all together and put it on for a large and enthusiastic audience! If you think this is far-fetched, you haven’t been to a Destination ImagiNation® Tournament! Teams work on – and solve – fabulous and complex Team Challenges, completely on their own.

DI requires teamwork, strategy, and imagination. You work with a team of 2-7 kids of your age to choose one of five central challenges, and develop and present your solution to that challenge. Your team will also have to solve an instant challenge, which is a miniature challenge for which you can only use the materials given to you to solve the problem within just a few minutes.

There are five challenges to choose from. They change each year, but they focus on: Technical/mechanical Design and Construction, Scientific Exploration, Theatrical/Literary/Fine Arts, Improvisation, and Structural/Architectural Engineering. There is also a special challenge for the K-2 age group, the Rising Stars. While the focus of each Team Challenge is different, each requires teamwork, research, script writing, creative use of materials, and theatrical presentation. Team Challenges encourage development of creative problem solving techniques, teamwork, and critical thinking skills.

At the Tournaments, teams compete at the same challenge within grade-level categories: K-2 (Rising Stars), 3-5 (elementary), 6-8 (middle), and 9-12 (high school).

The kids on the teams do it ALL– they create an action plan and work together to create everything needed for their Presentation. ALL the team manager is ALLOWED to do is be a facilitator, not a coach. He/she will be at the meetings, present instant challenges, watch you practice, demonstrate something if asked to, but he/she can NOT, under any circumstances, help you with your final presentation. Friends and family cannot even give suggestions!

If this sounds hard, you are right, but it is so much fun and so rewarding, too!

It is definitely a commitment — you must commit to weekly meetings and a lot of hard work leading up to the tournament, but you will have a blast doing it.

If you are interested, here is what you need to do:

• Be sure this is kind of commitment is for you (weekly meetings from October – March)
• Talk to your classmates and friends – see who might like to form a team with you.
• Talk to your parents and other relatives – try to find an adult willing to be your team manager
• Fill in the Registration Form (attached) and mail it in or drop it off before 10/5/09.

Your team will go to the Regional DI Tournament on March 20, 2010.
AND if the team is the top in its age group it will go on to the State Tournament.
AND if the team is one of the top two teams at States, it will go Globals in TN for 3 days.

Brief Summary of the 2009-2010 DI Central Challenges

Challenge A: DIrect DIposit
Focus: Engineering, Innovation, Design & Construction, Experimentation, Math, Communication, Theater Points of Interest! Your team will:
Present a team-created story about making a decision.
Design and build a piece of equipment that delivers supply Objects over a Barrier to Targets.
Consider risk versus reward to increase your Object score through strategic delivery to Targets.

Challenge B: DI®-Bot
Focus: Engineering, Robotic Technology, Research, Design and Construction, Science, Theater
Points of Interest! Your team will:
Learn about Robotic Technology and the changes it creates.
Create an original Story which shows one character’s life may be changed by Robotic Technology.
Design, create, and integrate a device called DI-BOT, which completes task, into the Story.
Create a method to change at least one prop or set piece, into DI-BOT, or a part of DI-BOT.
Create a scene change by providing an effective transitional link from one scene to another.

Challenge C: You’re Gonna Flip!
Focus: Storytelling, Puppet Design, Construction Design, Puppetry, Theater, Visual Arts
Points of Interest! Your team will:
Present an Original Story dramatizing how a Character experiences a Flip, about something.
Design, construct, and feature at least one Puppet as a character in the Story.
Create a piece of Live Visual Art that is to be completely produced during the Presentation.

Challenge D: Do or DI®
Focus: Improvisational acting, story development, teamwork, research skills
Points of Interest! Your team will:
Create a five-minute Improvisational Skit about a Threatened Thing in danger of extinction.
Present a Skit using a Character randomly selected from a list that the team has researched.
Incorporate props and/or scenery to enhance the Skit.
Integrate a randomly selected Unimpressive Superpower that is revealed during the Skit.

Challenge E: Breaking DI® News
Focus: Engineering, Materials Science, Research, Innovation and Design, Math, Theater, Teamwork.
Points of Interest! Your team will:
Design, build, and test a Structure made only of newsprint and glue.
Reduce the props and scenery used in the Presentation to fit inside a 30in x 24in x 48in container.
Reuse a story about a Newsworthy Event in a nation other than your own.
Recycle newsprint by using it creatively in a costume or prop.

Rising Stars!® Weighty News (K-2 Only)
Focus: Architecture and Structure, News Reporting, Research, Mathematics, Performing in front of an audience, Team problem solving
The Destination: Where This Challenge Will Take You! News here, news there…news, news everywhere! A Structure has been discovered. It is made of newspaper and tape. What could it be? Why is it here? What does it look like? How strong is it? How can it be used? So many questions! Maybe if we see a newscast about it, the reporters will have some answers. Let’s watch and see what’s new in the news!

The registration form is available for download here, or you can print out the form below.

DI REGISTRATION FORM 2009-2010
Choose from 2 ways to register–As an individual or as a Team!

INDIVIDUAL REGISTRATION:
We will make every effort to form teams for all interested students, but lack of Team Managers and conflicting schedules may preclude placement of some children.
Student’s Name:______________________________________ Grade:______ School: _________
Address: ____________________________________________ Phone: _____________________
M/F:________ Parent email address: __________________________________________________
This will be my _______ year in DI (1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc.)
Siblings doing DI this year: __________________________________________________________
Medical concerns (allergies/health issues of which the Team Manager should be aware):
_________________________________________________________________________________
Student Emergency Contact (Name and Phone):________________________________________
I’m available for weekly DI meetings on (circle all that apply): Mon Tue Wed Thur Fri Sat Sun
Your Team Manager will contact you to further discuss meeting schedules
Parental assistance is needed! Wayland’s Destination Imagination is run by volunteers and needs participation from every DI family to make the program a success.
Please consider managing or co-managing a team! You will be given training, materials, and lots of support from people who have done it before. You will facilitate weekly team meetings during which the kids do team-building activities, choose/work-on/solve a Central Challenge, and do Instant Challenges. It is lots of fun, and so rewarding.
If you are unable to manage a team, be sure to offer assistance to your child’s Team Manager by providing snacks, hosting meetings at your house, buying supplies, taking the kids on a field trip, etc.

Parent Information (please fill out the shaded box below whether you are volunteering or not)
Parent’s Name(s): _________________________________________________________________
School Affiliation(s): HH _____ Claypit _____ Loker _____
Address__________________________________________________________________________
Daytime Phone: _________________________ Evening Phone: _____________________________
E-mail: _____________________________________________ Cell Phone: ___________________
___ I would like to be a Team Manager
___ I would like to co-manage a team with another adult
___ I could be convinced to be a Team Manager, please call me to discuss
___ Sorry, I just can’t commit this year

TEAM REGISTRATION:
Talk to your friends, classmates, and parents and form your own team! You can have up to 7 team members. You must have an adult leader/co-leaders.
(CIRCLE ONE): GRADE K-2 TEAM GRADE 3-5 TEAM GRADE 6-8 TEAM
Adult Team Manager(s):_____________________________________________________________
Email(s):_________________________________________________________________________
Telephone(s): _____________________________________________________________________
Team member: ______________________________________ Grade: ____ School: _________
Team member: ______________________________________ Grade: ____ School: _________
Team member: ______________________________________ Grade: ____ School: _________
Team member: ______________________________________ Grade: ____ School: _________
Team member: ______________________________________ Grade: ____ School: _________
Team member: ______________________________________ Grade: ____ School: _________
Team member: ______________________________________ Grade: ____ School: _________
Team Manager Signature: ___________________________________________________________

Fees: Team Managers will collect DI fees once meetings begin. Fees vary based on number of team members and challenge materials required. Average fee is $80 to $120 per child.

For more information about DI: Go to www.MADIKids.com or www.idodi.org
Contact Jennifer Steel at 508-652-1952 or Ramah Hawley @ ramah.hawley@verizon.net

To register, complete this form and mail to:
Destination Imagination
c/o Loker School
ATTN: Ramah Hawley
47 Loker Street
Wayland, MA 01778
Forms must be received by Monday, October 5, 2009
You may also drop-off this form to your school office by 10/2/09.