If you and your team members are new to DI, it’s important that you all understand what to expect. Most important to DI is the premise that everything is done by the kids. We make a big deal about interference. Any adult contribution to the Challenge solution is interference, not allowed. That said, it is still your job as Team Manager to facilitate the team’s journey toward their destination. Be sure to read all of the published Challenge materials: the Roadmap, the Rules of the Road, and the Challenge summaries. It’s a lot of stuff, but it will make your job easier.
YOUTUBE PERFORMANCES
It will also be helpful for you and your team to see DI team performances. We are fortunate in this technologically advanced age to have multiple videos posted on YouTube of DI performances from all over. Just search Destination Imagination to find a wide variety. The performances available on official DI DVDs are wonderful, but they are usually global level teams. Many of those teams have been together for years and have worked their way from regional to state and finally to global. Don’t let those performances dishearten you. Chances are, your team will not look like that, and that’s the point. In DI we say that it’s the process that matters. Just getting to the tournament with a solution to present is a great achievement and is celebrated. A beginning team has much to learn, and in that learning, the most to gain.