Highland Elementary School’s Destination Imagination Fourth-Fifth Grade Team Takes Fourth Place At State Competition

Crozet, VA – Highland Elementary School’s Destination Imagination team of 4th and 5th graders placed second in the regional competition at Western Albemarle High School in Crozet on Saturday, March 12. That qualified them to go on to the state tournament on Saturday, April 2. Team Manager Sara Ervin talks about this year’s challenge.

“This team chose to do Challenge E; it’s called a structural challenge” says Ervin. “They have to build a structure; this years’ structure had to be out of wood, aluminum foil and glue. It can’t weigh over 25 grams, it can’t be any higher than 9 inches, it has to have the ability to fit over a 2 inch pole. A board’s placed on top and then they put weights on it, and the structure has to hold as much weight as possible.”

Sara goes on to talk about other parts of the team’s performance.

“They had to come up with a skit about a character that gets foiled becayse their challenge was called Verses! Foiled Again” says Ervin. “They also had to come up with a song or a poem for verses and then they had to create versus of their own being either a song or a poem.”

The skit involves a squirrel gathering acorns and a hunter with a bow and arrow looking for a tasty squirrel to make gravy. The hunter is foiled by 2 acorns on the tree and the squirrel escapes. Team member Will Thomas describes his role in the structural part of the challenge.

“In some parts, we all worked together, but then in some parts we were all in separate groups and did separate things” says Thomas. “Josh and I worked on putting the structure together and everyone decided on the design.”

The Highland team’s structure supported over 450 pounds and their amazing costumes, funny skit and catchy song were all praised by the judges. The team finished 4th out of a total of 9 teams in their division.

Although they didn’t qualify for the national competition, the team members had a good time building the set, and writing and performing their song and skit. Team members included Will Thomas, Joshua Vaus, Katie Amirault, Bethany Hoover, Lacey Richardson, Samantha Kincaid, and Haley Warner.