2020-2021 Challenge Previews

This year, your team will go on an adventure in a video game, using technical methods to design a team-created tool to win an ultimate prize! Your team will:

• Create and present a video presentation in the style of a video game.
• Include an adventurer who goes on a quest to win an ultimate prize.
• Portray a special ability used by the adventurer.
• Integrate 3 quest items and combine them to create a tool.
• Create and present two Team Choice Elements that show off the team’s interests, skills, areas of strength, and talents.

What if you could break a scientific law? This year, your team will create a documentary showing what the world would witness when a scientific law is broken.

• Produce a video presentation that tells a story about a Scientific Law that is bent and/or broken.
• Show how the Scientific Law is bent and/or broken.
• Include an expert and a witness in the story.
• Use documentary techniques to tell the story in the style of a documentary film.
• Create and present two Team Choice Elements that show off the team’s interests, skills, areas of strength, and talents.

Production techniques can make anything possible! Your team will mash together music and literature to create a music video.

• Research music videos and create a music video of your own.
• Use music and lyrics to retell all or part of a piece of literature.
• Design and build a costume.
• Research production techniques to enhance the music video.
• Create and present two Team Choice Elements that show off the team’s interests, skills, areas of strength, and talents.

Your team will create a podcast that tells a story to highlight the amazing project you designed to meet a community need.

• Identify, design, carry out, and evaluate a project that addresses a need in a real community.
• Create a video presentation that includes a podcast and a commercial.
• Include a cliffhanger and a quirky character.
• Integrate information about the project into the video presentation.
• Create and present two Team Choice Elements that show off your team’s interests, skills, areas of strength, and talents.

Your team will create a picture book about critters going on an adventure and share it in a team-created video!

• Create and present a story about a critter who goes on a big adventure.
• Write and illustrate a picture book.
• Integrate a special effect into the picture book.
• Create a song that helps tell the story.
• Share the picture book and the song in a team-created video.

Your team will create a video that explores architecture as art and showcases your team-created example of the intersection of art and architecture.

• Research visual art styles and architecture styles.
• Design and create a single three-dimensional physical model of a building.
• Create a video presentation that tells a story about how opposites can be complementary.
• Integrate your model of a building and a planning artifact into the video presentation.
• Present part of the video presentation using a split screen to enhance the story.
• Create and present two Team Choice Elements that show off your team’s interests, skills, areas of strength, and talents.

Your team will put on sleuthing hats and create a video that shows your team investigating a mystery.

• Research detectives and forensic techniques.
• Create an improvisational video presentation that tells a story about a detective and a sidekick teaming up to solve a mystery.
• Integrate a true clue and a red herring into the mystery.
• Include the use of a forensic technique to help solve the mystery.

In a world with growing cultural connections, increased levels and types of communication, and a new need for real-time teamwork and problem-solving, the ability to solve problems quickly is becoming increasingly critical.

• Each team will be asked to solve an Instant Challenge for their DI tournament.
• The team must think on their feet by applying appropriate skills to produce a solution in a short period of time.
• Instant Challenges are performance-based, task-based, or a combination of the two.
• Although each Instant Challenge has different requirements, all Instant Challenges reward teams for their teamwork.
• Instant Challenges are kept confidential until it is time for teams to solve them.