By Heather Nielson, FPN Contributor
The Vandegrift team for Destination Imagination won second place at the Global Finals in Kansas City.
The team name is Banana Split, and they have been together since the third grade. Members Sofia Malacara, Violet Ralian, Magnolia Carroll, Paula Martinez, and Hope Nielson competed with hundreds of teams from around the world. They came in second to the team from Ukraine at Global Finals, held May 22-25.
For the competition, they wrote an original script, made costumes, designed a giant flexicube that transformed into different scenes and then finally into a robot that talks, moves and self-destructs, shared Heather Nielson, who is team co-manager with Scott Nielson.
Banana Split just completed 9th grade at VHS. Their team was sponsored by LISD, Vandegrift PTSA, and support from the community through the team’s baked goods fundraiser.
Destination Imagination is an international creativity competition with regional, state, and the global tournament. Teams are given a challenge, and they work on a solution for most of the school year. The team must do all the work without adult assistance. They present their solution, which is normally required to be less than eight minutes and cost less than $150. This year, the budget was only $75, so it was even more difficult.
The solution that Team Banana Split created was a story like “Clue” meets “Frankenstein” with a modern twist. Five talented actors are invited to a mysterious mansion by an unknown director. They believe they are there to be part of a new movie, but it’s all a trap. The director has lured them there to steal their creativity and use it to complete his creation, the ultimate AI robot actor. As the night goes on, one by one their creativity is drained. Piecing together the clues, Miss White realizes that the villain is Professor Plum. Just in time, she saves everyone by destroying the robot with something small and simple: her trusty bobby pin that she always wears. With the robot disabled, everyone’s creativity returns to them, and Miss White teaches Professor Plum that true art must come from a human soul, not a machine. To tell this story, the team built a giant flexible cube that transforms into different scenes, each painted with minimalist art, until in the final scene, the cube becomes the robot actor, powered by Arduino. The robot talks, moves, and ultimately self-destructs.
“This Globals experience was so much fun and I loved getting to be with the team to compete, go pin trading, and do all the extra events like the Duct Tape Ball,” shared Hope Nielson. “This year felt extra magical with us getting to run down for the first time to claim second place and I’m so glad we got the chance to come despite dealing with injury, illness, and finals all beforehand!”