Goodrich-Having highly developed imaginations has recently made winners of some local students.
On March 4, three teams from Goodrich Middle School,7480 Gale Road, took first, third and fifth place in their repective catagories in their Regional Destination ImagiNation tournament.
In total, 115 teams competed in the region.
Established in 1999, Destination Imagination is a school-based program that emphasizes cooperation, creativity and problem-solving abilities.
‘It’s a creative problem solving program,? said Linda Morrow, affiliate director of the Michigan Creativity Association.
Morrow said there are currently 662 students involved with DI in Michigan.
Each DI team has anywhere from five to seven members, all of whom work together to solve a designated challange.
The first part of competition is picking a challange to tackle from the five given each year.
Eighth grade students Chelea Belanger and Terry Elizondo were on the team that won first place at the regional competition. Their team decided to tackle an improvisational challange called ‘On Safari?.
The team has been together for the last six years. Most of the students on the team now were part of the team they formed in third grade.
‘Most of the teams changed but ours has stayed the same pretty much,? Belanger, 13, said.
Belanger and her team are competing in an improvesational challange. Students know some elements of a skit they will be performing before getting to the compition, while other aspects are determined on the spot.
The team is then given 30 minutes to make everything they’re using in the skit’including costumes’unsing only items provided to them in a tool kit.
‘Our play was about Sherlock Holmes and Watson,? said Belanger. Randomly chosen elements of the skit included a penguin and a desert landscape.
A musical number was performed to end the skit with a big finnish..
Another aspect of the competition is the ‘instant challange.? Comepetitors know nothing about the challange they will be given for this portion of their score.
Morrow said students have 6-12 minutes to solve the instant challange.
Secrecy is emphasized to insure spontinaity and students are asked to make a ‘Destination Imagination pledge,? promising not to discuss the challange with others.
The Goodrich teams were true to their word; none would comment on the nature of the instant challange.
‘They can talk about it after global finals,? said Morrow
The Goodrich teams did well in both catagories.
‘We were the top team in the instant challange and the central challange,? said Belanger of her team..
After winning first place by obtaining 250 of 300 possible points, the eighth grade team is advancing to the the state level of competition along with other teams that place in the top four.
Accompaning them will be the sixth grade team, which placed third in their competition.
‘Our challange was called ‘Back At You,? said Danni Diamond, 11.
The team had to build a sender and a reciever that would shoot and return ping-pong balls, explained Diamond’s teammate,Candace Smith,11.
‘We had a vaccuum and we would shove ping-pong balls in there,? said Smith. She said her team encountered some technical difficulties, as did many of the other teams.
In addition to the technical aspect of the challange, there was a creative part as well.
The team ‘had to have a story that tied into your challange,? said Diamond. ‘We did (a story about) weather.?
Also doing well at the competition was the seventh-grade team, who came in fifth in their division.
‘Ours was just an acting one called ‘How’d tHAT Happened,? said Ally Ross, 12.
To successfully complete the challange, the seventh-grade team had to perform a skit about a hat with powers to dramatically change transform the actors, Ross said.
‘In our story Mia Ham is in her back yard looking for a soccor ball and finds the hat and a (magic) tunnel,? said Ross.
By taking fifth place, Ross and her team only missed advancing to the next round by one place.
Having won four times at regionals, the eighth grade students are confident about their team’s chance of winning the state competition on April 22 at Central Michigan Univeristy. If they do, they advance to the global competition in Nashville, Tenn.