Blair team meets challenge of Destination Imagination, six years running

Article and photos by Jay Goldman
Special to the Voice

A team of seven juniors at Montgomery Blair High School has advanced to the state tournament of the Destination Imagination creative problem-solving competition for the sixth consecutive year.

Destination Imagination is a non-profit corporation that sponsors a worldwide, youth-oriented, creative problem-solving competition. The purpose is to teach problem-solving strategies, teamwork, and lifelong skills. Maryland's West Central region consists of 35 Montgomery County public and non-public schools, 30 of which registered teams in one or more categories at the regional tournament.

The Blair team, consisting of Lynn Abe, Abby Goldman, Jordy Goldstein, Sarah Janesko, Sally Lanar, Monica Maher and Tess Minnick, will compete in the "Sudden SerenDIpity" category at the state tournament at Towson University on April 9. (Destination Imagination events incorporate the capitalized DI in their titles.)

The team placed first at the Montgomery County tournament, which drew 62 teams from elementary, middle, and high school levels, on March 19 at Watkins Mill High School.

Most of these students have competed together since their days at Silver Spring International Middle School, where they first competed as a 6th-grade team. If they place in one of the top two spots at the state competition, the team will advance to its third successive global competition, to be held over Memorial Day weekend in Knoxville, Tenn.

The Destination Imagination competition consists of two events: a comedic skit on a chosen theme that teams work on for months; and an "Instant Challenge," in which teams have six minutes or less to solve a problem they are given on the spot and present the solution to judges using a few assigned materials.

Blair's Destination Imagination Team frame themselves in a postcard. (From left) Lynn Abe, Monica Maher, Tess Minnick, Abby Goldman; (front) Sarah Janesko, Sally Lanar, Jordy Goldstein.

 

To prepare for their competition, the Blair team designed an eight-minute skit replete with costumes, music, a mechanical device, and staging. Their comic skit, with a biomedical theme, takes place inside a human body where two superheroes, Sarah and Dipity, join forces with two scientists to combat the villainous Influenzio and his sidekick Common Cold.

The seven friends have competed as a team with only slight variations over the years, making them one of the longest-continuous entrants in Destination Imagination. For instance, Maher returned to the team this year after a three-year absence while she lived in Greece, where her parents worked in the U.S. foreign service.

All teams are residents of Silver Spring, except Lanar, who lives in Takoma Park. Rebecca Salon serves as the team manager. Goldman has competed since 6th grade and serves as the unofficial team captain. She said that her team has worked steadily since last fall on creating and then refining its problem-solving approach.

In the Sudden SerenDIpity event, a team creates an invention that results from a serendipitous turn of events in its storyline. The students were limited to less than $125 in building materials for staging and their invention: a catapault that helped the scientists ward off the human-like characters portraying the flu and common cold.

Sarah and Dipity (Sarah Janesko and Monica Maher) combine forces to defeat villlains Influenzio and Common Cold.

"Our goal all along is to return to Knoxville," Goldman said.

Also qualifying for the state event in April is a second Blair High School team, consisting of Michael Arbit, Pratik Bhandari, Will Ardanuy, Eddie Wang, Brett Holbert, June Hu and Ekta Taneja. The team manager is Rhona Arbit. They are competing in the "Live! It's Radio DI!" category.

In addition, teams from Piney Branch Elementary will participate in the "Sudden SerenDIpity," "DIsigning Bridges" and "Live! It's Radio DI" events at the state level. In the intermediate school division, teams from Eastern Middle School will compete in the "Sudden Serendipity" and improvisation categories.