DI Creativity Day with Lincoln

Lincoln got chosen to be a part of a program at school called Destination Imagination.  Here is a little bit about it:

Destination Imagination, Inc. is a leading educational nonprofit dedicated to teaching students the skills needed to succeed in school, their careers and beyond. We develop project-based learning programs that blend STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) education with the arts and social entrepreneurship.

Through our programs, students use the creative process to turn their ideas into reality and learn invaluable skills through the process including:

• Creative & Critical Thinking
• Team Building
• Problem Solving
• Risk Taking
• Project Management
• Perseverance
• Self-Confidence
Students work in teams to research, design, and build a solution to their preferred Challenge.  Students who participate in the Challenge Program have the opportunity to present their solutions at a local tournament and if they qualify at the state level, they’re invited to participate in Global Finals, our culminating international tournament that celebrates student creativity.

His team went to a Creativity Day in Greenbriar where they practiced doing Instant Challenges.  Instant Challenges will be 25% of their score during a tournament.  It requires teams to engage in quick, reactive, and critical thinking.  Let me tell you, they are interesting!!  I got to watch them practice these Instant Challenges, and I was SO impressed.

This is his team.  They are all 5th graders at his school.

I just couldn't get over these challenges.  This was the first one.  It was called "Balance of Power."  They had to build a structure that only touches the ground within a red square and supports weights directly above different purple squares.

These were their materials.  They had 5 minutes to think about it and build it.  Crazy.

This was what they came up with.  Impressive.  Since this was just for practice, they told them kind of how they would have been scored had they been at the real competition.

Next, was "Fit for a President."  They had to make a perfect "political" sandwich for the president.

"On the Tube" had them building a structure on an inner tube that was as tall as possible.

They taught them about improv.  They told them to do certain things, and they had to think fast and come up with something.  Here they said to be a bed.

This was a bunk bed.

In "Ping Pong Animal" they had to build a "creature" that could toss ping pong balls as high as possible.  

"Gone Fishing" was interesting.  They had to make a fishing pole and line and put as many "fish weights" as possible on the line.  It had to be attached to the table.

They had a whole bunch of clothes pins (weights) on their line--the most in their round.  Each project had 3 other teams in the room doing the same challenge.  When everyone was done, they all talked about what each team did and the facilitator told them what they did right/wrong and what they could have done better.  It was definitely a training day for the real competition which is in March.
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Last was "The Lid Flies Away with the Spoon."    They had to build a vehicle that would fly with its load to a targeted area.

This was a super fun day, but I know it wore Lincoln out!

They have a lot of work to do to get their Engineering Design done before March 3rd.  They have to build something using certain materials to accomplish a certain task.  Adults can't help them at all other than purchasing the materials.  They meet after school once or twice a week to work on their stuff.  They also have to do some sort of play where they act something out.  It will be very interesting to see how they do.