Waupaca Destination Imagination students compete
Three Waupaca Destination Imagination teams earned spots at the state tournament on Saturday, April 8.
The teams competed in a regional tournament at Waupaca High School on March 25.
Destination Imagination is an international, educational program that encourages innovation, team work and creative problem solving.
Forty-one teams, with team members from kindergarten through 12th grade, competed in seven different challenges at the regional tournament.
Waupaca had four teams participate.
The Cool, Cooling Animals, placed first in the service learning challenge. This elementary school team painted a mural in the warming shelter at Foundations for Living, to welcome overnight visitors, and then explained their project at a Dayton Community 4-H Club meeting.
Their presentation at the tournament needed to include all of their project information, in the genre of a fable.
The Super Seven Unicorn Watchdogs, competed in the scientific challenge, at the elementary level, which required them to develop two different methods of encryption of a message and present a performance about a secret mission, with a team designed “gadget”. The Unicorn Watchdogs tied for second, earning them the right to compete at the state level.
The middle school team, the Super Six has numerous past regional and state wins. They competed in the improvisational challenge.
The improv challenge required the team to create three separate skits, with planning and performance of each skit to occur within three minutes. The skits each had a randomly selected stock character, a randomly selected genre and a randomly selected story prompt, as well as a team supplied “box of stuff” to be used as props, scenery and costumes.
The Super Six tied for second place and will also be competing at the state tournament.
The youngest team, the Super Heroes from Chain-O-Lakes Elementary, was in a noncompetitive category. They impressed the audience and judges with their performance involving simple and complex machines.
Stevens Point will again be the site for the state Destination Imagination tournament. Teams that place first, second or third will earn the privilege of competing at the Global Finals tournament in Knoxville, Tennessee, in May.