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"Switch" structure team striving for global finals

Contributed by: Catherine Rafferty on 9/15/2007

Destination Imagination (DI) teams are forming across the world to test their creative problem solving skills through one of five challenges in theater, technical ability, hybrid theater/science, improvisation and structural design. The program culminates in a Global Finals competition in Knoxville, TN for the top teams in each category who compete at the regional and state levels.

Arvada High School's team, Blair Elmo Project II (BEPII), has high hopes to make it to Global Finals for a fifth time by competing in this year's structural challenge, "Switch."

BEPII took 18th place of 53 teams at Global Finals in Knoxville, TN in the May 2007 "Cardiology" structure challenge. Before qualifying for Global Finals, team members Kyle Giddings, William and Heather Rafferty, Robyn Mattivi and Ashely Lehr took first place in the Jefferson County Regional DI Tournament and tied for first place in the Colorado DI Tournament.

The team utilized structural engineering concepts to create a 32 gram structure made of playing cards that held over 250 pounds. Their technical ability was coupled with theatrical and set design creativity during the integrated eight minute presentation, "Breaking the Silence of Love," featuring an original soundtrack composed in Garage Band and a multi-faceted eight foot "pop up book", which served as the scenery for their 1920's "silent movie" skit while the structure was being crushed. The set was recognized with a Renaissance Award at the state competition. "The evolving set took us on a journey of love through life and death without a word of spoken dialogue."

Contributions by the Jefferson Foundation, AHS administration and Student Council, a car wash and Valentine sales made the program possible for this team. Team managers Andrew Gordon, a teacher at Dunstan Middle School, and Grant Euler, a teacher at Arvada High School, spent countless hours with the team.
Destination Imagination offers exciting creative-problem solving challenges each year to teams across the world. In the May 2007 Global Finals, eleven foreign countries including Brazil, China, Korea, and the UK were represented. More information about forming a team in Colorado can be found at www.extremecreativity.org.



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Showing 1 of 1 comments
Submitted By: Seth Davis
posted on 9/20/2007 @ 4:11:33 PM
Rated Story
Thanks for posting this story, Catherine. These sound like some talented kids!
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CONTRIBUTOR INFORMATION

Catherine Rafferty

Arvada , CO

Catherine Rafferty has posted 1 story and 0 comments since joining on 9/15/2007. Catherine Rafferty 's average story rating is 5.
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