My Challenge History
Here are the challenges I have solved through the years with my teams final placement.
Watch Videos of my Team's performances.
2010 Breaking DI News - UTD - 1st(UL) at Global Finals
Click for information on how I constructed this year's structue.
This is year 15 for me and last year competing! For the central challenge we had to choose a newsworthy event in a nation other than our own and present a skit with our own interpretation on the event. Our team chose Magellan sailing around the world, and while he actually never made it himself for a variety of reasons he completed his journey in our performance. Magellan was out of a job looking to make some money when he saw an ad in search of a newsworthy event. He set off and travelled to America and met a Native American being forced from her land, China where Pandas are becomming extinct, and France where he met Marie Antionette in the middle of the French Revolution. None of these events or countries seemed newsworthy so he decided to return home. Upon reaching Spain his crew realized that they had themselves created a newsworthy event by accidentally circumnavigating the globe.
Our side trips this year were Marie Antionettes newspaper dress, and the puns and humor implanted throughout our performance.
2009 A New Angle - UTD - 1st (UL) at Global Finals
This challenge required us to create a story about merging 2 arts forms to create a new art form. We took this literally. Two sisters are trying to exhibit their art pieces at an art show. They elicit some help from Private DI! Arthur Vark and his brother Bartholomew Vark. Our performance included references to all of the current year challenges along with some references to past challenges. After clearing up some misunderstanding with Art Vark the two sisters point out that they already have their two art "Forms" completed to exhibit their works of art but the appraisers have told them they only have room for one Art Form. They solve this Dilemma by merging the two art "forms" into one art "form" by using a stapler ("That was easy") they received as a premium for ordering a pizza. We finish with a song and dance number.
2009 DI eXtreme®DIus eX Machina - UTD - 5th (UL) at Global Finals
It's not called a risk if you don't sometimes fail.
2008 Switch! - UTD - 1st (UL) at Global Finals
Our Switch item was a Swiss Army Knife. It has a blade for cutting and a reamer for making holes. Our performance took place at the Vatican where the Pope was trying to encourage people to return. We carved a statue out of rock and it came to life as we entered into our freeze frame. In the 2nd half a stove catches on fire ("Friar, Friar, Your pans are on fire."). The rock statue saves the day by putting out the fires. Watch our statue during the performance as she poses as various statues (Statue of Liberty, Thinker, Heisman trophy). We finish up with a funny dance number.
2008 DI eXTreme Super Max The Darker Side of DI - UTD - 1st (UL) at Global Finals
This challenge called for us to think outside the box and develop a story that played with lighting, as they were going to turn out the lights in the performance hall.
One of our interruptions was having to take at least 30 photos and burn them to a CD to turn in. Our team chose to create 256 individual 1 pixel "photos" of each color of the 256 color spectrum. Our reasoning was that these pixels could then be arranged to create ANY picture that you wanted.
2007 Card-DI-ology - UTD - 1st (UL) at Global Finals
I joined a new team at the University of Texas at Dallas. This was an interesting year for me because I had to learn to place weights with a new partner for the first time in 5 years. Our story was a take off on the story of Romeo and Juliet. Our characters were cards. Our side trips consisted of our card costumes and our rhyming script.
2007 DI eXTreme Raucus Rickshaw - UTD - 1st (UL) at Global Finals
For this challenge we were required to build a Rickshaw - a vehicle with two wheels with a passenger seat and able to be pulled along by someone walking in front of it. We had to include something in the vehicle to make it technical. As always, there were DIstractions while we were working on our solution. The goal was to move the vehicle around a square course and pick up team specified items. Our rickshaw transformed into 2 other vehicles - a submarine and a car. We told the story of a boy growing up and how he handled the things that he encountered as he grew up. Some of the things he picked up as he traveled around the course in our vehicle included water - which we poured into his diaper as a baby, and a girl - when he became an adolescent. I played the girl that was picked up. This caused a little concern with the appraisers because all team members were supposed to be behind the line when time started.. but items to be picked up were to be placed in the corners of the square. It took a while but they finally caught on and I transformed from a team member to a prop. This was by far the most fun eXtreme challenge I have competed in.
2006 On Safari - Martin High School - Non-competitive
This was my Senior year in High School and one of my team mates and I had competed in every type challenge except for the Improv challenge. We wanted to finish up High School saying that we had tried them all. The Rules of the Road say that you can't compete in another challenge if you do the Improv challenge but our Regional Director told us we could do On Safari but we would have to do it Non-competitive. We wanted to say we had tried them all so we elected to go ahead and do it as a non-competitive team.
2006 Inside DImension - Martin High School - 1st (SL) at Global Finals
The architect we selected was Frank Gehry and the building was T he Dancing House in Prague. For one of our side trips we created large Nesting dolls . The largest doll was a portrait of Frank Gehry and the dolls on the inside depicted things that influenced him. This allowed us to "look inside" our Architect. Frank Gehry designed a line of cardboard furniture so for our second side trip we decided to create our own cardboard furniture. We used corrugated, regular cardboard, hexicomb board and large paper tubes to create different types of furniture. My favorite piece was a replica of Frank's Wiggle Chair . A couple of our members were unable to go to GF with us so we had to rework our performance after state to replace the two missing members. We went to GF with 5 team members but the photo only shows 3 because a couple of our team members wanted to return home for Graduation. Click HERE to see more pictures of our sidetrips for this year.
2006 DI eXtreme Juggernaut Jumble - United Regulators - 3rd (UL) at Global Finals
Ms. Groberg (UL coordinator) put me in contact with some boys from Iowa and I joined their team (The United Regulators) in Knoxville to do DI eXteme Supermax. We received our challenge at late Thursday night and had 12 hours to complete the challenge.
2005 DIsigning Bridges - Martin High School - 4th (SL) at Global Finals
Our teams' bridge between two cultures was between two Secondary Level "More to the Story" teams :-) — 1 from Japan and 1 from the USA. Each team chose the story "The tortoise and the hare" as the basis for their performance. We chose this to show that children's stories bridged the gap between the two cultures. Even though the countries were far away from each other they still have the same children's stories - just expressed in their own culture. The American team did a traditional play and the Japanese team did Kabuki as they told "More to the Story." Our side trips were an Origami Swan, a Wooden Puzzle Box and a mannequin that narrated our story. This was the only time that I did not place weights at the tournament. While working on the Puzzle Box with a router I cut the tip off of my finger and was unable to handle the weights. The Router went on to the "tools we do not get to use" list.
2004 GuessDImate - Martin High School - 9th (SL) at Global Finals (SL)
Our teams performance revolved around Constance - an orphan taken in by DaVinci - who had no self confidence and was always second guessing herself (our "guessing" theme.) She constantly second guessed herself throughout the play until the end when she realizes that she controls her own future. This was our teams first time to chose a serious subject matter. Our wood creation was a Helicopter based loosely on one of DaVinci's sketches.. We created wooden pedals and a wooden chain to drive the gears that turned the rotors of the helicopter. Since this structure had to be made only of wood we decided to theme our side trips also. All of our side trips were made from wood. We made a working wooden padlock , a world globe (modeled after a soccer ball) and did a marquetry (wood inlay) recreation of Da Vinci's "Portrait of a Musician". Click HERE to see a copy of DaVinci's painting and HERE to see our re-creation in Marquetry.
2003 ConnecDId - Martin High School - 5th (SL) at Texas State Tournament
We created a Universal Connection Creation TV that connected with TV sitcoms and shows from across the years (I Love Lucy, I Dream of Jeannie, Gilligan's Island). Genie wanted to have her master fall in love with her so she hops out of the TV and steals a bottle of "love potion #9" from a home shopping channel. The TV was a connection between different channels and the characters from different channels and shows interacted using the UCC TV. In the end our weight placers were sucked into the TV as the tune from the Twilight Zone played. The thing I remember most about this year (and the thing that drove our Team Manager crazy) is that after Regional Tournament we scrapped everything except for one backdrop and a mask and created an entirely new performance. Considering half of our team was away for part of the time and we had less than 4 weeks I think we did a great job. Our side trips were a bouquet of duct tape roses, a dress constructed from duct tape and a monkey mask.
2002 Dual DIlemma - Young Jr High - 2nd (ML) at Global Finals
Our contrasting performances were about a team that came to a DI tournament and was NOT prepared and ad-libbed everything and a team that came to a DI tournament fully prepared. I think this is my favorite presentation (at least so far). We used a Romeo and Juliet theme. Our prop that had to change between the two performances was awesome. At first it was a balcony and then it folded down to make a funeral stone in a mausoleum (for Juliet to die on). Our side trips were a paper mache fountain, a bouquet of roses created from plastic spoons and forks and a poem we wrote for the transition between the two parts of our performance. Click HERE to watch video of our team's time in the construction zone at Global Finals.
2001 Triplicity - Boles Jr High - 3rd (ML) at Global Finals
Our team told the story of a structure competitor getting ready for the tournament and falling asleep. While asleep he interacts with characters from his desk that come to life and assist him in solving his structural challenges. Our side trips were a cast paper angel , our rhyming script and a page out of a giant pop up book that we created. Our character traveled through the book in his dream.
2000 Fruit Roller Coaster - Boles Jr High - 4th (ML) at Texas State Tournament
We told the story of an underwater seahorse race. There was a mermaid detective searching for the stolen trophy, and it ended up that a burger monster had stolen it and left a trail of "burger crumbs" which helped lead to the recovery of the trophy.
1999 RatiOMetric - Young Jr High / JB Little Elementary - 1st (ML) at World Finals
This was a interesting year for me. I was a 5th grade girl on a team of 8th grade boys. Our team was a group of imps helping Mother Nature repair the West Wind that had broken down. Our imps had names such as "erfect" (Imp-erfect), "rove" (Imp-rove), "ede" (Imp-ede) and the Imps acted as their names suggested. We also did the performance in rhyme. We practiced this script so much that I think I can still do most of it.
I am 'Cee'
and I'm here to assist
on any story line
that you might miss...
Imp Cee (Emcee) - get it?
Our wooden creation was a working windmill that turned via a hand crank.
1998 Create and Animate - JB Little Elementary - 8th (EL) at Regional
Our creation that came to life was a bird from a cuckoo clock.
1997 Can You Dig It - JB Little Elementary - 7th (SL) at Sub-Regional
Our team were architects in Egypt and discovered something extraordinary. I have a mental block on this performance because our team was caught with the "if a team member is stuck - then the whole team is stuck rule" that was in place at the time. Our first team member got stuck and we received zero points in spontaneous (ouch).
1996 Better Safe than Sorry - JB Little Elementary - Non-competitive
Don't remember too much about this except that we had to come up with a safety rule and I played the character "Mister Bumpy". I do remember our safety rule which was "Don't chase after lions because they might bite you."
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