Medina finishes 18th at Destination Imagination competition in Tennessee

Provided photos – Medina’s Destination Imagination teams includes, from left: Margaret Klotzbach, Elle Gross, Jack Masse, Mary Flores, Nathan Sherman, Layna Valoria and Abigail Neuman.

Press Release, Medina Central School
MEDINA – Students from all around the world, including Medina, participated in a three-day event known as Destination Imagination in Knoxville, Tenn. More than 17,000 people attended the competition, which is billed as the largest creativity gathering of its kind.

Destination Imagination works with educators and industry experts to develop seven new academic challenges in the fields of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math).  Students work in teams to research, design and build a solution to their challenge.

Students had the opportunity to compete, attend workshops, and develop science and space-related skills. Destination Imagination organizers say the participants are some of the most creative and innovative students in the world.

“We have students from China, we have students from Turkey, we have students from Qatar, they’re from all over the world. In fact our international participation has been growing phenomenally over the past few years and we’re really excited to give our students here in the United States a chance to interact with global participants,” says Andrew Whitmire, Associate Program Director.

Whitmire says each team spends two to four months coming up with a solution to a problem. They later present their solution at local tournaments. The teams with the highest scores compete at the state and country level. The Global Finals event is the international competition.

Medina team members are pictured in their ’60s style outfits. They include, from left: Jack Masse, Mary Flores, Layna Valoria, Elle Gross, Nathan Sherman, Margaret Klotzbach and in front: Abigail Neuman.

Seven 8th grade students from Medina High School comprised The ’60s Team. They competed in the long-term challenge, Get a Clue. The team had a few months to solve and prepare a solution where they had to present a mystery story, which was set on Earth, and chose a time period before 1990.

While on a live on stage, they discovered which of the three suspects is responsible for the mystery, and they had to quickly come up with an ending on the spot. The performance, which was presented in traverse staging, also had to include a TechniClue that helped to solve the mystery.

Luckily the team had the help of the Medina Village Police before they left for competition to learn the art of fingerprinting to crack their case in the eight-minute solution. The team also competed in the instant challenge portion of the competition that involved walking into a room where they are presented with a handful of materials. They were given about five to seven minutes to solve the problem given to them.

The Medina team is pictured with members of a team from Korea.

In addition to the competition, the students also enjoyed fabulous events hosted by the University at Tennessee. They attended an expo with hands-on exhibits from NASA and other leaders in the scientific world, a workshop on scriptwriting and had fun attending a Duct tape costume ball with the band The Exchange. They also attended a passport party, outdoor recreational activities, and met students from all over the world while pin trading.

“The experience was very rewarding,” said Medina coach Marguerite Sherman. “The enrichment the students received is something that they will grow from and treasure for the rest of their lives.”

The students and coaches would like to thank everyone who supported and helped them to have this experience.