BOURBON – It’s not the first time a team from Triton High School has made it to the Destination ImagiNation Global Finals. Triton has taken part in DI for the past 15 years, and for the past 10 years in a row, at least one team from the school district made it to Global Finals. But this is the first year a team has competed in three challenges and made it to Global competition in all three challenges. Managed by Lisa Eiser, the team, calling themselves the Hi 5’s, includes Triton juniors Ethan Yazel and David Stewart, seniors Jacob Stouder and Thom Eiser and Huntington senior Emmanuel Bravo. According to Thom, the whole Triton DI program this year had more teams than usual. There were seven competing teams, with five of those teams made up of different people. There were elementary, middle school and high school teams. All teams advanced from regionals to state competition, he said. “Our team took on the challenge of doing three challenges this year,” said Thom. Destination Imagination requires teams to creatively solve two different kind of challenges. Thom said there is the main team challenge, and then there’s the instant challenges. Teams work on the main challenge all year, while the instant challenges are handed to them at competition. With three challenges this year, the Hi 5’s also had three instant challenges during competition. “We were busy,” Stouder said. At regional competition, Thom said they didn’t have a lot of competition. However, at state, Triton faced enough competition that at least one team was eliminated in each challenge. In one challenge at state, Triton faced five other teams. The Hi 5’s took first place. In another challenge, there were four teams competing and Triton took first place again. For the third challenge, Triton’s team took second, but Indiana advances the top two teams to Global Finals. “We have five people on our team and we made some pretty cool things,” said Thom. One of the challenges was the “Mythology Mission”, according to Stouder. It incorporated learning about different countries, cultures and a mythical creature from each culture, and using random objects from a box to do a skit. It has to be done in under 10 minutes. Another challenge was the “Triple Take Road Show”. Thom said it’s all story oriented except for one scoring element. “We have to tell one story three different ways in eight minutes. It had to be directed at three different audiences,” Thom said. “A different mode of transportation had to be used each time,” said Stouder. Teams were judged on the creativity of the mode of transportation. “Creativity is always a factor,” Stouder said. Their modes of transportation were a human elevator and a human unicycle. Stouder got to be the unicycle. Triton team members decided to limit themselves to using just cardboard and markers, except for the PVC pipe marimba they built using a math equation they found online. They play the marimba with a pair of flip flops. The third challenge for the Hi 5’s was “Verses! Foiled Again!” For that, teams had to design and build a structure made only of aluminum foil, wood and glue. The team had to test the structure’s strength by placing weights upon it at the tournament, and it was tested for weight held ratio. According to Yazel, it could not weigh more than 15 grams. The challenge also required the team to use a verse from an existing song and to create their own verse. The Hi 5’s spoofed Batman and Superman, creating Wombat Man. This year, Yazel said, the structure didn’t have to be integrated into the story. Scoring for this challenge was 58 percent structure weight, 31 percent story and 11 percent creative structural use of the foil, Yazel said. The Hi 5’s leave Saturday for Global Finals competition in Knoxville, Tenn. Registration is Wednesday, with competitions beginning Thursday. “Our biggest goal is to have fun and do our best,” said Thom. “My personal goal is, I want to be the best at Instant Challenges.” All work done in Destination ImagiNation is by the students. Global Finals includes schools from more than 25 countries and nearly all 50 U.S. states. For more information about Destination ImagiNation, visit the website at www.IDODI.org
