Claypit Hill's Destination ImagiNation Team Prepares for Global Finals

What do you get when you take five fifth graders and challenge them to creatively exchange items between a 6-foot tower and the floor without touching the tower or items with their hands?

In the case of Claypit Hill’s Destination ImagiNation (DI) team, you get an award-winning solution and the chance to compete in a global competition.

Destination ImagiNation is an “after-school activity in which students work in teams to solve mind-bending Challenges and present their solutions at Tournaments,” according to the DI website.

Alex Beer, Matthew Curran, Nolan Keegan, Geoffrey Wang and Kara Whitesell comprise “Team Techno,” the Destination ImagiNation team at . Together, they devised a contraption capable of transferring diverse items, including a two-liter bottle, a golf ball, a sponge and more, from the floor to the top of a six-foot tower and vice versa without the use of AC power. The “equipment” they designed and built to move the items had to fit inside a 20-inch by 20-inch by 20-inch box.

In addition, the team had to write and perform a sales promotion highlighting the features of its solution.

“It was sort of hard to work together,” Nolan admitted, saying that the team tried many things before settling on an option that worked.

Kara agreed, but added that it “worked out pretty well.”

Each year, DI establishes challenge categories and criteria that vary in terms of the skills and techniques they emphasize. The Claypit Hill team elected to enter the “Unidentified Moving Object” category.

Alex explained that the group wanted to build something rather than write a skit or story as some of the other categories required.

“It was fun to fiddle around,” Alex continued, as her friend Kara, whom Alex recruited so she wouldn’t be the only girl on the team, nodded in agreement.

“Fiddling around” seems a bit of an understatement given that, according to a press release, the team double-medaled at the regional tournament March 19, taking home both the Renaissance Award for engineering, design and performance and capturing first place in the “Technical Challenge” category.

Then, just a week later, “Team Techno” competed in front of an audience of more than 1,000 people. The performance earned the students a state championship trophy and an invitation to compete in the Destination ImagiNation Global Finals May 25-28 at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.

“They used their imaginations and creativity,” said team manager Christine Chiang. Each team has an adult manager who facilitates practice time, but cannot help complete the challenge. “They didn’t get discouraged. They tried and tried and tried again.”

Now the team is looking ahead to the Global Finals. The stakes are a bit higher and the challenge a bit tougher – the tower at the global competition is eight-feet tall and is surrounded by a pool of water, so competitors are limited in how close they can get, Chiang explained.

The team performed for classmates at Claypit Hill during a school-wide assembly in early April, but beyond that they are understandably secretive about their project. For competitive reasons, the team members don’t want to disclose too much information about their equipment before the event – nearby Framingham is also headed to the Global Finals – but they will be redoing a few things to meet the more stringent demands at the global level.

While the kids are working on their project, adults connected to the group are working on raising funds to make the trip to Knoxville.

Penny Beer is in charge of fundraising and said the goal is to send each child and five adults to Tennessee in late May. It will cost about $10,000, or $1,000 per person, to make that happen.

“It’s terrific that the kids are performing so well,” Beer said. “[But] we didn’t have much time [to fundraise] to start with. We didn’t know we were going to be going down there.”

At this point, Beer anticipates the fundraising activities she is planning will likely be reimbursing the cost of the trip, not paying for it ahead of time. She said there is about $1,000 already available in a grant, but the rest will be raised in styles similar to what is used by the Robotics Club and Rocket Club when they need to send children to competitions.

The initial fundraising event is a garage and bake sale April 30 at 16 Bow Road. Beer said they are currently accepting donations of good-condition, resalable items for the sale. Contact pdbeer@comcast.net with questions.

Beer is also working on a raffle and a car wash to help raise the needed funds.