Montana Destination Imagination

Team Registration

Remember December 15 is the Early Bird Registration Deadline.  If your team(s) and appraiser(s) are registered by December 15 they will receive a special gift.

Now that you have purchsed your membership, it is important to register your team(s) as soon as possible with Montana Destination ImagiNation.  This allows us to also make sure your team managers are receiving this e-mail and are notified of any trainings and important information.  To register your teams(s) go to the Montana DI website, set up an account, and proceed to the registration form.  The account will allow you to update the registration as needed.  If you don't have your team rosters complete or they have not picked a challenge please still register the team with their team manager.  You can always go back and update the registration.  If you need help finding funding to purchase your membership or pay your tournament fees please contact Montana Destination ImagiNation at montanacq@msn.com or 406-285-3777.

Each team must provide a trained appraiser for the regional and state tournament.  Please register your appraiser on the Montana DI website.

Have you ever tried to encourage your team to brainstorm for more creative ideas but were met with blank stares?  Here are some tools and tips for bringing the idea machine back to life:

1. Focus on a particular area of the challenge.

Don't try to solve it all at once.  If your challenge is more technical than performance, your team may want to make sure they have the technical elements in place before choosing a theme or designing non-essentail set pieces.  If your challenge is more performance, having the theme and story in place could help the team decide on the technical piece.  In this case they might map their story and characters leaving holes for logical technical expansion.

2. Use the SCAMPER tool to add uniqueness to ho-hum ideas.  Start with a team generated idea and have team members generate "What if" questions targeting elements of their story using the SCAMPER letters.  For example, the team has decided to use the story of "The Three Little Pigs."

• Substitute ideas What if the three little pigs' houses were made out of breakfast cereal?
• Combine ideas.  What if the three little pogs met up with the three bears?
• Adapt.  What if Big Bad Wolf is a bully at our school?
• Modify (magnify or minify).  What if the three pigs are giant-sized and the wolf is small and weak?
• Put to other uses.  What if the straw, sticks and bricks are goods sold at a beauty salon?
• Eliminate. What if there really was no wolf and the pigs made up the story to collect insurance?
• Reverse/Rearrange.  What if the wolf is the good guy and pigs are out to get him?

Just remember that as Team Manager you may target different elements already identified in their story, they must come up with the "What if" questions for each letter of SCAMPER.

3.  Use a morphological matrix to experiment with different ideas.  For example, the team has decided that they want to make the three pigs more interesting and distinct from each other.  Using the "morph matrix" they came up with categories and ideas for the pigs personalities.

• Emotions: Grumpy, Tearful, In Love, All Business
• Quirk:  Can't stop laughing, Talks in puns, Repeats others lines, Has indigestion
• Appearance:  Muscular, Painted camouflage, Formal/Tuxedo, Wears cow suit
• Voice: Radio Announcer, Squeaky, Snorts, Pouty

Once the team has the lists in place, the team will experiment with the personalities by mixing and matching their character traits.

There is more information on using SCAMPER and the Morphological Matrix tools in The Problem Solver's Practical Toolbox available at Shop DI (www.shopdi.org).

Communication challenges are the final type of identified IC's.  These challenges usually outline a task that must be performed by one or more team members communicating instructions to the other team members using team created communication methods.  Typically, your team would be given a short amount of time to create the communication system.  For instance, your team may be asked to communicate and perform a task using animal sound communication.  Although all communication challenges are little different, the team should always make sure that they can communicate the following when the IC procedures allow:

Incorrect or "you misunderstood me" Example: lion roar.

Repeat or "I didn't understand you" Example: chimp sounds

Task completes or "Correct."  Example: cow moo

30 seconds to complete or "time is running out, finish up" Example: Snake hiss

Time or "we're finished" Example: rooster crow.

Communication challenges are easy to devise and set up yourself for practice with a minimum of materials.  You can create a map on a grid that is as simple or complex as you feel your team can non-verbally navigate.  To keep the two sides from seeing the map, grid or instructions, use an emplty three-ring binder as a barrier.

Try "Barnyard Bingo" from Cream of the Crop.

In previous issues of Discussions we outlined Performance Based and Task Based challenges.  More advanced Instant Challenges incorporate combinations of the challenges.  Here are some possible combination challenges with examples.

Performance/Task: Team would be asked to create something with provided materials and then perform a story or song about it.  Or they might be asked to create a story while also creating with provided materials.

Performance/Performance: The team could be asked to create a performance and then be asked to add something to it given new instructions from appraisers.

Task/Task: The team could be asked to create something with given materials that will perform two functions or that can be converted easily to perform a different function. (Example: tower to bridge)

Communication/Performance: The team could be asked to complete the communication task and then perform a grand finale using the team created communication technique.

The key to solving any Instant Challenge is to practice all the different types of challenges and be ready for anything!

You can order a copy of Cream of the Crop Instant Challenge from Montana Destination ImagiNation.  Just send and e-mail to montanacq@msn.com.