What is Destination Imagination? Destination Imagination (abbreviated to DI) is where teams of students work together to solve STEAM-focused challenges. Challenges range from improvised acts to organized, hand-crafted skits.

This past weekend, Bob Jones hosted the State DI tournament. All levels, from elementary to high school, competed at the tournament. Teams tested their creativity with various prompts and challenges. Bob Jones competed in the “So Extra” challenge where they displayed their improvisational skills. All of the teams competing in this category are required to create an improvised skit based on a prompt. To make it more of a challenge, teams are given an intensifier, which in this case were adjectives. Intensifiers allow teams to amp up their acts or tone them down. All teams at state face an instant challenge that tests students’ abilities to think creatively on the spot.

TJ Sanders, a member of Bob Jones’ Destination Imagination team, said that they had been training for months. He said that to prepare they used stock characters and generic scenarios to be ready for any prompt they faced. By using this method, the team would have a solid ground to work on when coming up with their skit. Sanders said that he and another teammate used Monty Python and the Holy Grail as an inspiration for their improvised acts. TJ said that although it is his first year acting in DI, he is very excited to continue in the upcoming years. He stated that DI has taught him how to be creative and come up with ideas on the fly.

The team is run by Robin Dauma, who led them to victory. Bob Jones scored the highest in each category at last weekend’s competition. This means the team can now go to globals, which is hosted in Missouri this year. We are super excited to see how well they do at globals and we can not wait to see what comes next for Destination Imagination.