Destination Imagination

Zayna (team member): Understanding that people from all over the world are just the same as you and have beautiful and valuable things to give has been incredible.

(Kids cheering)

Grace (team member): It’s just meeting all these different people and learning about all the different cultures that make DI fun for me. Finally getting to go to Global Finals and saying this is what I came here for.

Blaire (team member): One of the biggest things I learned in DI was teamwork. I already have the skills within me, and it just takes merging them with other people’s skills, learning a couple new things, and unlocking a creation.

Toni (adult team manager and volunteer): It’s a good program for the kids to learn to use their minds. This will be a great opportunity for the kids to really express themselves in more ways than one.

Sydney (team member): We build a lot of backdrops and you get to use a lot of cool tools, so I know how to practically build something from the ground up. It just gives you a lot of practical skills that you need in the real world.

Jeremy (adult team manager): I love DI because it really teaches kids skills and abilities that they don’t learn in school, that they don’t learn in sports.

Leslie (adult team manager): I would suggest signing up as quickly as you can, because it’s absolutely a window unlike any other activity and this is really watching kids develop as independent thinkers.

Zayna (team member): I learned that I’m allowed to love science and be an artist at the same time.

Grace, team member): Everyone should do DI. It really brings out the best in people.

(Music)

Team Member 1: For this season’s Scientific Challenge our team had to explore scientific concepts used in amusement park attractions. We have to design and build an attraction that uses scientific concepts during this operation.

Team Member 2: Our team’s performance had to tell a story that features the attraction operating in an unlikely location. The challenge also requires us to create two Team Choice elements that showed off the team’s interests, skills, areas of strengths, and talents.

Team Member 3: Our team’s skit takes place in the White House backyard, and the two political parties refused to accept each other, and they’re like this because our attraction, the American Voter Bee, has polarized the politicians, and it’s kind of cool because in the end you get to see that the voter is both the problem and the solution to the issue of political polarization.

Team Member 4: The three scientific concepts my team researched and explored were pneumatics, angular momentum, and levers.

(Music)

Team Member: Our unlikely location is the White House backyard, and we use 12 different random household items to decorate it, such as wine corks, pasta ,and contact cases.

Team Member: There’s our attraction, it’s the American Voter Bee, and it’s brought on as the idea that’s going to be a solution to all their problems, but it’s kind of the opposite at the beginning.

Team Member: There’s the first scientific principle angular momentum, and it’s shown as the bee swarming, so when the two weights come closer to the center, it starts to spin faster.

Team Member: That’s the second scientific principle, which is pneumatics, and it’s used to shoot a stinger outside of the bees, but it’s a piston stinger so that the stinger doesn’t actually just fly out.

Team Member: That’s our third scientific principle which is levers. We use wheels which are a type of lever to convert circular motion into linear motion, which makes the wings flop and the legs move.

Team Member 5: Our two Team Choice elements were our costumes and our four songs. Our costumes were throughout the entirety of our performance to make it more big bold and dramatic. Our songs appeared four times. The first three were dark and evil, and were centered around the Bee which showed the dark polarization of our parties. Then in the end we have a bright happy song that shows the unity and the joy among the government.

Team Member 3: One of the things that our team really loved about this challenge was that it has so many different elements to it from a technical aspect to a performing aspect.

Team Member 5: And we felt like this was perfect for our team because some people were better at the tech, and others were better at the performance, and this was a perfect balance.

Team Member 2: One of the most important life lessons I learned in DI was teamwork, especially when you have the opportunity to create such a big skit. You’re going to want many different perspectives to give you a more multi-layered and giver skin.

Team Member 3: One of the most important skills that I learned when solving the challenge was time management skills because obviously at the beginning of the year, you and your team know that there’s a lot of things that you want to get done, and being able to manage your time wisely can be useful because it helps you break up a large amount of work into smaller and more manageable pieces, which helps you get your work done more efficiently.

Team Member 5: One important life lesson that all take away from di is the fact that if you really want to accomplish something you have to put in the work, the effort and the TIME.

(Applause)

(Music)

I’ve genuinely said over the years that like I was so lucky to have had creativity class as a kid, that I learned how to be creative by doing Destination Imagination and things like it. And I learned that it was a skill you could practice—that collaboration has skills involved and I use them to this day. And it’s kind of the opposite of what the rest of school was teaching me, which is kind of “Do this assignment as you’re told and you’ll be graded.” And I’m so grateful that I got trained in a way to sit down with some friends, solve problems together, and make some art. What an invaluable skill that honestly applies in so many industries and disciplines, but it obviously really applies as a filmmaker.