Six students from Kirkland schools will join more than 8,000 students from more than a dozen countries at the Destination Imagination (DI) Global Finals later this month in Knoxville, Tenn.

The team consists of Juanita High School (JHS) juniors Adam Chen and Laura Chen of Kirkland and Madelyn Colantes of Redmond, International Community School (ICS) juniors Eric Gery and Ronya Strom of Kirkland and Tesla STEM High School sophomore Claire Whiteside of Kirkland.

DI combines the STEM subjects of science, technology, engineering and mathematics with fine arts to create stories and design objects to illustrate those stories. In addition to engineering props for the challenges, teams also write skits to help explain how their props work.

The current group has been competing together for a few years, but Adam and Gery met in the fourth grade and started the team then. Adam’s twin sister Laura also got involved. Their parents Eileen and Eric Chen, are the team managers.

CHALLENGES

The Kirkland team is competing in the engineering challenge, which has a theme this year of “In It Together.” For the challenge, according to the DI website, they must:

• Design, build and test multiple free-standing structures that work together.
• Develop a strategy for placing structures to support as much weight as possible.
• Develop and present a collaborative solution to a global issue.
• Create and present two Team Choice Elements that highlight the team’s interests, skills, areas of strength and talents.

The team changes their name every year to reflect the different challenges, and this year’s name is Impending Loom.

For this year’s competition season, they’ve prepared a story that involves the Incan people coming to Spain instead of the reverse.

“We wanted to do something with ancient cultures because Adam’s really knowledgeable in that area,” Whiteside said.

The backdrop for the teens’ skit includes an aqueduct and a Rube Goldberg machine, and the props they designed include, as the team name suggests, a loom that includes moving pieces to change the picture on display. Part of the criteria for this year’s competition includes incorporating an artistic or scientific creation from both of the cultures involved in their narrative. The loom comes from Incan culture and the students adapted the selective breeding program the Spanish used on animals from horses to condors.

In their narrative, the aqueduct breaks and floods a palace, separating people from their loved ones. The Incan and Spanish people are challenged to work together to reunite everyone. On one side of the flooding, people send a message across to the other side to build a bridge, but it gets lost in translation. The other side winds up selectively breeding condors to carry people across the flooding and reunite them with their loved ones.

“I’m really interested in genetic engineering,” Laura said of the team’s decision to incorporate selective breeding.

The six teenagers work as a cohesive unit, embracing each other’s strengths to make sure everyone has a voice in the process without the work getting muddled.

“We know what roles everyone excels in,” Adam said.

Whiteside and Strom typically are two of the main actors in the team’s skits, and Strom said she enjoys being involved in the storytelling aspects of the challenges, writing the skits alongside Colantes and Laura.

“She’s the actor, normally the villain,” Laura said of Strom.

Adam really enjoys the artistic process of the challenge and this year he took his knowledge of art history, especially the Baroque period, to design and create the environment and props.

Gery also enjoys the creative aspects of the challenges and the variety of items they have the opportunity to create. This year, he had a big part in assembling the loom, which itself is made of woven pieces.

The variety is something that has piqued the interest of many of the team members.

“In no other situation would you have the opportunity to make an aqueduct or a condor or an organ like we made last year,” Laura said.

The students said the team members are also very adaptable, stepping in to help on a variety of tasks.

“I do whatever needs to be done, from little, simple jobs to setting up a production line to acting,” Whiteside said.

Production lines are a frequent part of the DI challenges and they can be quite cumbersome at times. Over the years, the team has learned to be resourceful and the value of a few pieces of cardboard.

“You can make anything out of cardboard,” Laura said, adding that this was how they created the organ for last year’s challenge.

“We raid Costco (for empty boxes),” Colantes added.

In addition to the prepared challenge, the team also participates in an instant challenge. The team will be provided with the challenge and materials to solve it with only five to eight minutes to produce a solution.

“It’s very impromptu,” Whiteside said.

To prepare for the instant challenge, Colantes said their team managers have a book of practice items to help them design creative solutions to problems in minimal time.

PREPARATION

The team has been refining the prepared challenge for months. In addition to the global competition, they participated in the regional competition in February in Everett and the state competition in April in Wenatchee. They won first place at both events. To get ready for the competitions, Colantes said their weekly team meetings pretty much become a daily occurence.

“When we’re approaching competitions, we meet every day,” she said.

“It’s go time,” Whiteside added.

This will be the fifth time most of the team has gone to the global competition, and for the members who’ve been involved longer, it will be the seventh. They’ve placed third two times and second one time.

“We really hope this year we get the one trophy that alludes us,” Adam said.

On top of Impending Loom heading to this year’s global competition, a younger Kirkland-based team, known as Unclean Cuisine, will be heading there to participate in the scientific challenge. Some of the members of the younger team are the siblings of Impending Loom members.

Going to this competition can be quite costly, from travel and accomodations for the team to shipping their props halfway across the country. Impending Loom has started a GoFundMe page in an effort to raise $5,000 to go toward their expenses.

“It’s a very expensive trip,” Colantes said.

For more information about the team or to donate, visit gofundme.com/kv3crx-destination-imagination-globals. More information about Destination Imagination can be found at destinationimagination.org.

Impending Loom team members Madelyn Colantes, Adam Chen, Laura Chen, Ronya Strom, Claire Whiteside and Eric Gery pose for a photo after a competition. Courtesy photo

Impending Loom team member Claire Whiteside, who is a sophomore at Tesla STEM High School and lives in Kirkland, participates in a recent Destination Imagination competition. Courtesy photo

Impending Loom team member Laura Chen holds a condor prop at a recent competition as her twin brother and teammate, Adam Chen (left), observes. They are both juniors at Juanita High School. Courtesy photo