Montana Destination Imagination

Don't Delay

Remember that the summary of the challenges are not the complete challenges.  To participate in tournaments, your teams need a complete set of the challenges, rulebook and guides as soon as possible.  Therefore, it is important that you do not delay in purchasing your membership from Destination ImagiNation at www.shopdi.org.  If you need help finding funding to purchase your membership please contact Montana Destination ImagiNation at montanacq@msn.com or 406-285-3777.

Once your team has chosen the Team Challenge you can begin collecting ideas for a solution. 

The first thing your team needs to discuss is the rule of Interference.  This should be the team's secret until they take their solution to their Regional Showcase.  Not only does secrecy keep them from unwittingly soliciting ideas from outside the team but it ensures that their solution will be truly unique.  Once the team understands this concept they can get to the nitty-gritty.

First, read through the challenge together.  Ask your team members not to comment on the challenge or blurt out ideas until they have read through the entire Itinerary portion of the challenge.  Then you can begin generating ideas.  

Everyone has heard the term Brainstorming but few understand that it actually has rules that make it truly effective for gathering ideas.

1. Withhold judgment. Team members should not comment on each others' ideas until the "brainstorm" is over.  Stating that someone's idea is bad shuts down the process for that person.  Stating that someone's idea is great shuts down the process for everyone.  Sticky notes are good tools for writing down ideas and pasting to the wall.  (Hint: Record all ideas and keep them for future reference.)
2. Go for quantity. Your team wants lots of ideas to choose from.  The ideas can be about characters, scenery, gadgets, theme, songs, color schemes, you name it.  Don't worry if an idea doesn't make sense.  The team can sort it out later.  20 ideas are good, 50 are better, 100 or more ideas will get your team started comforably.  And they can add to them at any time.
3. Look for combinations. Ballet and basketball? Why not?
4. Seek novelty. The more uncommon, the better.  This is called"creative" problem solving so unsual, whacky, unconventional ideas are what it's all about.  Go ahead, take the risk!

Instant Challenges come in two basic flavors: performance-based and task-based.  The first generally asks the team to create and act out a story.  Task-based challenges ask the team to build something specific with materials supplied by the IC Appraisers.  Fancier Instant Challenges combine the two types of IC's.  We'll DIscuss task based challenges in the next issue so for this week concentrate on performance.

Performance based challenges are all about story design.  "Your team's challenge is to perform a story about ___ characters(s) that overcome ___ obstacles/conflict to accomplish ___ goal."  A beginning, middle and an ending.  Props or materials may or may not be supplied.  The challenge may even ask the team to create some imaginary props.  Performance IC's are valuable for teaching the team how to perform and how to develop characters.  There is no such thing as interference while your team is practicing performance based challenges that have been supplied in books or that you have made up yourself.  So go ahead and coach the basics of performance and let the team experiment with the characterizations and using unusual props/materials.  We'll discuss more about the competition later in the year but let the team begin performaing right away!

Shop DI and By DI-sign magazine have lots of performance based challenges to practice.  You can also check out these websites:

Instant Challenge Playhouse

Ohio Regional Instant Challenges

Ben's Instant Challenge Gold Mine

The Future

Present a poem about what will happen to your team tomorrow.  Each line in the poem must rhyme with the word _____ and once you've used a word to rhyme with _____ you may not use that word again.  Create the longest poem possible until you can't rhyme with _____ anymore.

Snapshots

Divide the team into two.  Half of the group must tell each other about their summer vacation.  The other half of the group must act out "photographs" as the vacations are being described.  The people acting out the "photographs"  must hold the "photographs" (stay completely still) for at least ___ seconds.  When one of the group describing their vacation laughs at one of the "photographs", the groups must switch roles.

For more Instant Challenge Ideas order Cream of the Crop from Montana DI or check out the Instant Challenge CDs and Books available at www.shopdi.org.