Ledyard Center School recently celebrated the return of seven of their fourth-grade students who had the opportunity to travel to Knoxville, Tenn., to compete in the Destination ImagiNation global finals. The fourth-graders, known as team EATLARG—Etienne Kinney, Aaron Norcia, Tyler Allen, Logan Hinton, Avery Davies, Ryan Krupansky, and Gianni Jannke DeMuzzio—were invited to take part in the event after placing second in their age group at the Destination ImagiNation Connecticut state finals on March 22 at Connecticut College in New London.
The global finals was a four-day event and the culmination of thousands of regional competitions that Destination ImagiNation oversees around the world.
Created in 1981, Destination ImagiNation, Inc. is the world’s largest creativity and problem-solving organization, attracting students from around the world from kindergarten to college level to compete in a variety of creative-thinking competitions. Participants form teams of no more than seven students who work together for around 12 weeks to create a solution to a central challenge, which can have a theatrical, structural, improvisational, scientific, or technical focus.
Team EATLARG, which was overseen by team managers Kurt Jannke and Chantal Kinney, chose to conquer “Obstacles, Of Course!” a central challenge which saw the fourth-graders design and build an obstacle course, design and construct a vehicle to traverse the course, create an original and non-verbal skit about overcoming obstacles, and create two side trips: props, music, technical gadgets, costumes, or physical actions that work harmoniously with the theme of their central challenge. Jannke explained the angle the team took to complete their challenge.
“They did a central challenge where they present the solution to a problem that they have been working on since November,” Jannke explained. “They designed a remote control car pretty much from scratch. They purchased the actual control switch, but everything else they designed from scratch and these are 9- and 10-year-old boys and no adults are allowed to help them at any point, so it was impressive. It probably took them about three months to complete the car. To be honest with you, me and the other manager, Chantal Kinney, really didn’t see how they were going to pull this off, not from scratch, but we just sat back and watched and they actually did it so it was pretty amazing.”
After completing their obstacle course and remote control car, the team competed, earning an invitation to the global finals, held at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. Along with the jubilation of their success and the opportunity to represent their state, the team was also struck with the reality of the $10,000 price tag of traveling to and competing in the global finals. Jannke said the team saw it as yet another obstacle, and in the spirit of their challenge, decided to press on and earn their way to the event.
Gathering funds by hosting a car wash fund-raiser and working for an entire day at Nippy’s Golf Range in Norwich, the team also reached out to the community for aid and received an excellent response. With the Mary Kay Foundation and Pearse-Bertram, LLC, their two largest contributors, the team also received large donations from family and friends as well as countless donations and support from more than 100 contributors in the community at large.
With their ticket punched, the team made it to Knoxville on May 21, where they found themselves immersed in a world of Destination ImagiNation as the organization had rented out the entire University of Tennessee campus, Knoxville Convention Center, and many of the downtown hotels to accommodate the staff and participants of the global finals. With more than 1,030 teams from around the world, the global finals lived up to its name, giving participants the opportunity to not only learn from the solutions to the various challenges, but also to learn and make friends with participants from various cultures, something Jannke said his team was particularly interested in.
“They watched a lot of presentations from other teams from all around the world and at different levels from elementary, middle school, high school, and university level so it gave them a lot of ideas and food for thought as to how many solutions there can be for the same problem,” Jannke said. “They learned a lot from just observing other teams and getting to know other team members.”
When their number was called, team EATLARG performed admirably, working extremely well together and making the best out of a tough situation as their remote controlled car experienced some technical difficulties. Yet even with the added challenge, the team nearly completed the entire obstacle course, as time ran out while the car was ready to complete the final obstacle. Having done their part, the team spent the majority of the rest of their time having fun, watching other performances, and making new friends from such distant countries as Brazil, China, Korea, Poland, and Guatemala. Jannke said he could tell the kids really got a sense of what a once-in-a-lifetime event it truly was.
“I think they just enjoyed the energy of it all the most,” Jannke said. “The fact that everyone was having fun celebrating each other and doing fun, creative things, not only in the competitions but also in other voluntary creative events that were going on was great. The atmosphere there was pretty special.”
For more information and additional photos of team EATLARG, visit its Web site at 72.10.122.101/schools/lcs/lcsdest.htm.