By Libby Cluett
lcluett@mineralwellsindex.com
Two teams of 11 creative Mineral Wells ISD students will head to CyFair High School in Cypress, Texas, this weekend for the next leg of their DestinationImagination journey – state competition.
The teams – “Mint ConDItion” and “5 Piece Nuggets” – will compete in different categories. Each won their state berth at regionals last month.
Success relies on dedicated students with a variety of skills and talents, who can work together. Each challenge gives teams parameters, but leaves plenty of room for students to exhibit their imagination and creativity.
Mineral Wells Junior High art teacher Jacki Bandy sponsors DI students for the team contest, which includes building artistic props, scripting and presenting a performance and building a small structure that can hold tremendous weight. All of these elements are presented simultaneously as Mineral Wells Junior High students saw last Friday in a special performance by the two teams.
In Mint ConDItion’s competition, “A New Angle,” students must focus on structural engineering, construction, innovation, design, mathematics and theater arts. Team members Jessica Johnson, Shae Lee, Lexis Nix, Caleb Bandy, Andrew Eudy and Willie Mitchell wrote and constructed a performance featuring a 6-foot-tall comic book, which had been dog-eared, smeared and coffee-ringed. The skit also has an unmistakeable protagonist and antagonist through the characters, Mr. Good and Dr. Bad.
In a side component of their skit, Mint ConDItion teammates Shea Lee and Willie Mitchell carefully stacked heavy weights on a small structure Caleb Bandy built. The structure had to meet certain specifications – be a maximum of 7-½ inches to 9 inches tall, be able to fit over a 4-inch by 4-inch block, yet have a small end that can fit through a 3-inch circle. By the end of Friday’s sample performance, the small hand-built structure buckled under 861 pounds.
The 5 Piece Nuggets team selected a scientific challenge in “Instinct Messaging.” This challenge combines theater arts and animal science by having teams portray how animals changed their communication to adapt to survive against predators. Members Lacy Pruitt, Josh Mays, Kathryn Witschorke, Abel Betancourt and Ivonne Corona developed a skit and wrote an illustrated children’s book on how the groundhog’s communication changed from a bark to a chirp when the wolf and hawk sought it as a meal.
At state competition, students will also be required to think on their feet in an instant challenge. According to Jacki Bandy, students have no idea what the challenge is going in and can’t discuss it until after the global competition in May.
According to the DI Web site, teams must solve instant challenges in two to five minutes. These challenges are designed to display students’ improvisational skills, collaborative efforts, engineering skills, flair for performance, time-management strategies, teamwork and their ability to assess and use available materials in creative ways.
After two days of intense competition this weekend, what’s next if they win at state? “Both teams have their sights on global [finals],” Bandy said of the teams’ respective challenges.
Education
Related Photos
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DestiNation Imagination By Libby Cluett
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Mint ConDItion member Shae Lee stacks large weights on a small hand-built structure Friday while fellow team members perform a skit for a Mineral Wells Junior High assembly. Lee's DI team is one of two from Mineral Wells ISD that will be competing in the state competition this weekend. Libby Cluett
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<font color="green">No strains on these brains</font>
Two Mineral Wells DI teams head to state competition this weekend
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