Sindhu Chidambaram

Posing for a picture, the Destination Imagination team smiles after taking 2nd place at state. The challenge the team did this year was the Service Learning challenge. “We chose to help a local dance school called Art Beat,” sophomore Sindhu Chidambaram said. “Art Beat offers free dance classes for those on the autism spectrum. We raised awareness for the dance school and provided the adaptive class with sensory kits.”

Destination Imagination (DI) is a program where students all over the world create teams to compete as creative problem solvers. 

For a competition, DI team members choose a team challenge and then work on it for a couple of months in preparation for their competition. At a competition each team will perform an 8-minute skit they have been working on in the months prior to the competition, this is the largest portion of the scoring. The second part of the scoring is the instant challenge. This is much like the team challenge but in a smaller time frame. The instant challenge can be task-based, building with materials, or performance-based, improv. Both of these scores are put together to determine the winner of each competition. This year the DI team competed at the State level with 18 other teams.

“We prepare by choosing a team challenge, coming up with solutions and lengthy meetings at times,” sophomore Sindhu Chidambaram said. “The solving part is always the hardest part of destination imagination, once we figure out what we want to do, it is pretty fun. We can then start building, writing, and practicing.” 

The challenge the team did this year was the Service Learning challenge. This required the team to make a service project, they also had to make their play based around a character going on a quest. 

“We chose to help a local dance school called Art Beat,” Chidambaram said. “Art Beat offers free dance classes for those on the autism spectrum. We raised awareness for the dance school and provided the adaptive class with sensory kits.”

The sensory kits the DI team made were each a different color. That way the kids are able to use those colors to help express how they are feeling. Their play was based off of Dungeons and Dragons, the DI team used dice to navigate the play as their main character traveled around the world. In the team’s play, Art Beat becomes Heart Beat, the House of a fairy-dragon-princess. In the play, the fairy-dragon princess and a potion master help an autistic child try to control and understand her emotions.

“With the guidance of the Druid/Narrator, they must defeat the trolls Self and Doubt in the danger zone,” Chidambaram said. “Our fantasy map shows the location of the characters on their path to find a magic potion to help the autistic child using lights, switches, motors, and circuits. At the end of the play the child realizes she doesn’t need the help of the fairy-dragon-princess, or the potion master’s potion, she realizes she can do it herself.”

This year the DI team took 1st at regionals and 2nd at state.

“My favorite part about attending State was waiting for awards after our Instant Challenge,” sophomore Anjali Ravi said. “We got one of our team members to put makeup on us, and we had so much fun wearing it and laughing with each other.”

The DI team is very proud of how their competition went, according to sophomore Aryana Jahadi.

“[The state competition was] amazing,” Jahadi said. We did great in IC and our main challenge went really well. There was one little bump but the appraisers laughed at our puns and seemed very interested in our service project.”

Jahadi has been a part of the team since 7th grade. There have been a few member changes but most of the team is a part of the original team since the time when Jahadi joined. She couldn’t choose a better team to be with, she says.

“It was really cool to see the team put aside any disagreements or tensions we might have had at the time and just click together,” Jahadi said. “Our solutions for both competitions were really good and I’m super proud of how the team did. We changed a lot after regionals and our play is super creative and very unique now. It’s nice to look back and see the progress we’ve made.”