Sports and arts provide popular after-school outlets for students. However, Destination Imagination (DI) provides an opportunity for others to work outside the box.
The DI competition featuring FC students will be held March 13 at the Buchanan High School east gym at 12:30 p.m. The team ‘Catch Frase’ will compete in ‘DIrect DIposit’.
This event is meant to demonstrate students’ capabilities in engineering, design processes and experimentation. The goal is to build a crane or other lifting-device in order to move an object from point A to point B.
The team of five sophomores has been working for months for this day. After watching her brother participate in DI, Gigi Thao wanted to create a team of her own.
“I started DI because it’s something out of the ordinary, even though it sounds weird and a bit nerdy,” Thao said. “I chose this certain challenge because it was an opportunity that would take us the farthest. I want the members to remember our team and its accomplishments.”
To expand his creative abilities, Zed Fries, ’12, joined Catch Frase. According to Fries, his contribution to the team is his artistic prowness.
“I enjoy DI because I can use my creativity and imagination to achieve things,” Fries said. “It’s also a way to hang out with my friends and do ricidulous things that spur a lot of inside jokes. This year I’ve built a crane thing and I hope we nail it and go to State [Championships].”
This is the second go-round for the team, who also competed last year in Private DI. The previous event was an instant challenge which did not require much preparation.
Despite being preoccupied with several other after-school activities, another team members, David Casuga ’12, says he has high hopes for success.
“Last year was better because it was simple,” Casuga said. “It was unorganized and it was a more attainable goal. We’re going to win this year aside from the fact we are still unorganized. We have lots of good ideas and creative ingenuity.”
In order to help past students to continue to be successful, math teacher Jane Gillespie agreed to support the team as their team manager.
“I agreed to be the team manager because the students on the team I really like, but are out of my classes now. They are a smart group of kids and hard workers so I want to help them be successful,” Gillespie said. “I haven’t volunteered for DI in over six years, so I’m excited to see how everything has changed.”
For more information, read the March 3, 2009 article, DI teams approach Regional Finals.
