Ben Franklin Academy’s Destination Imagination (DI) team consisting of current seventh grade students Grayson Wilt, Keian Martinez, Luke E. Smith, and Ryan Fillmore took first place at last Saturday’s South Metro Destination Imagination Regional Tournament held at Heritage High School!
The team did a great job with their core Improv competition. The Improv had to incorporate an expert, a competition, and a complication. For our team, their randomly selected expert was Socrates, the competition was Thumb Wrestling, and their complication was An Overprotective Jump Roper. As you can imagine, this was not easy, but they did a wonderful job integrating all of the components in the Improv routine and got quite a few laughs out of the judges!
Their Instant Challenge was another bright spot on the day, as they quickly completed the challenge, which maximized their points. Now their sights are set on the DI State Tournament which will be held on Saturday, April 1, at Metropolitan State University. They’ll practice during the coming weeks to refine their Improv delivery and strive to incorporate elements that have proved successful for other teams. The boys came away from this weekend happy and full of confidence and resolve to continue to improve their performance.
For those unfamiliar with the Destination Imagination program, it’s a STEAM rooted challenge that promotes creativity and encourages kids to develop critical thinking, problem solving, and leadership skills. You can find out more about DI on their website.
Keian Martinez, Ryan Fillmore, Luke E. Smith, and Grayson Wilt