DI state tournament relief

Whew. I just heard that the DI team I helped coach didn't make it to Globals. Sorry, should I back up a little? Beginning in January, I started c0-managing a Destination Imagination team with a fourth grade parent. DI is a spin-off of Odyssey of the Mind (did anyone do OM as a kid?), but with more performance/theatre components. Our team, seven fourth- and fifth- grade boys, has been meeting every Wednesday for the last four months, working on a challenge that involves building a structure out of wood and glue. It has to weigh less than 22 grams and support weight in two orientations. In competition, they have eight minutes to present a play, test their structure, and demonstrate two other 'side trips'. (Our side trips were guitar-playing and Rubiks cube-solving.) They also have to do an Instant Challenge, which they don't find out about until tournament day, and which they have roughly five to eight minutes to solve, starting from the time the challenge is read to them.

The citywide tournament was April 4, and we came in third, which meant a trip to the state tournament today. I was crossing my fingers that this would be the end......Globals is a huge three-day event in Nashville, TN, which costs each team member something like $600 - $1000, and happens in three or four weeks. Not a lot of time to fund-raise. In any case, the team did really well today, and I was really proud of them, and they placed 14th. Yay! Whew! (That's out of 25 teams, if you're curious.) Their structure held 25 pounds in the first orientation (it could probably have held more, but they didn't want to break it until they could test it the second way) and 55 pounds in the second orientation, which is pretty good for a flimsy little balsa wood structure that measures 8" x 9" x 4" and weighs 20 grams! I didn't get to see their Instant Challenge, because it is super-secret -- I can't even tell you about it until after Globals -- but they came out of the room all charged up and feeling pretty good about their problem-solving abilities.

I'm relieved that the Wednesday meetings are over, but it really was a lot of fun to see these guys in action and get to know them all a little better. Now, will I volunteer next year? We'll see......