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For the seventh year in a row, Dover Sherborn competed in a Regional Destination Imagination (DI) competition. More than seventy DS students made up twelve teams, and they all took to the stage at the Wilson Middle School in Natick on Sunday, March 12 to showcase their hard work and ingenuity.
Teams worked tirelessly over the last five months creating solutions to “Central Challenges”, which are published annually by the global Destination Imagination program. They are open-ended challenges for teams to choose from in focus areas that are Technical, Scientific, Fine Arts, Improvisational, Structural, Service Learning, and Early Learning. Participants learn and experience the creative process from imagination to innovation, which fosters their curiosity, courage, and creativity. They learn higher order thinking and improve in creative and critical thinking while learning to work together as a team.
Teams are led by adult Team Managers that help students stay on track but do not directly help the team develop its solution to the Central Challenge. A big part of the DI program is the Interference policy: in short, kids have to imagine, create and develop solutions on their own. Parents, Team Managers, family and friends can’t suggest ideas or force teams in certain directions. The solutions that teams present on competition day are owned one hundred percent by the team members themselves. This creates a huge sense of accomplishment and empowers kids to learn from missteps as well as from triumphs.
The Dover Sherborn DI program has grown tremendously in the last seven years. It was piloted in 2010 with just one team of five students. The program has since expanded and is stronger than ever with teams from the DS Middle, Chickering Elementary, and Pine Hill Elementary schools all participating. The DSDI program is now the largest team in DS’s Region, which includes teams from Wayland, Newton, Wellesley, Natick, and other much larger towns. For the last four years, DSDI has had teams advance to the Global competition level.
On competition day, DSDI had an impressive showing with six team receiving recognition at the awards ceremony. Teams placing first advance to the State Competition on Saturday, April 1 at WPI in Worcester.
Top finishers were:
Improvisational category
The Blue Mustaches - 5th grade (Kate Hammerness, Naimh Sharpe, Katie Murray, Caroline Guillette, Dylan Melanovsky, Angie Feng, and Rohan Bahadur); 1st place. The Blue Mustaches will advance to State Final competition to be held on Saturday, April 1 at WPI. The Super 5 Emoji’s – 3rd grade (Stephen Alphas, Isabella Campanella, Vivian Kamphaus, Grace Melanson, Charlie Potter); 2nd place. The United Thunderbirds – 5th grade (Hayden Hoffmann, Alice Lin, Claudia Martin, Maggie Neyenhouse); 3rd place.
Fine arts category
The Daredevil Brainiacs - 4th grade (Dagny Abbett, Audrey Capone, Hazel Conlow, Janie Hyde, Lilly Page, Mia Root); 3rd place.
Engineering category
The Shooting Star Shockwaves – 3rd grade (Luke Ceol, Patrick Driscoll, Kyle Embree, William Lombard, Jonathan Shen); 1st place. The Shooting Star Shockwaves will advance to State Final competition to be held on Saturday, April 1 at WPI.
Scientific category
The Elite Exploding Blueberries - 5th grade (Sasha Ceol, Caitlin Driscoll, Caetlyn Embree, Patrick Lombard, and Alex Wu); 1st place, Technical Category, Elementary Level; also winners of The Renaissance Award which recognizes outstanding design, engineering, execution and performance. They Elite Exploding Blueberries will advance to State Final competition to be held on Saturday, April 1 at WPI.
For more information about DI, visit www.destinationimagination.org or www.madikids.org. As the program continues to grow, DSDI is always looking for more community involvement. To become involved in DSDI as a volunteer, contact Megan Abbett at abbettkm@msn.com.
