Special to the Reporter

Nine Mercer Island Destination Imagination teams recently participated in the Global Finals tournament in Kansas City, Missouri, and performed extremely well. Our top teams took home first and second place in their challenges and all the teams put on outstanding presentations that included excellent technical elements that put STEM learning into practice.

This year’s three-day tournament included more than 650 teams from all over the world. Some of the 13 countries represented included China, Mexico, Qatar, Poland, Ukraine, along with 35 US states.

The Mean Green Beans won first place for the senior high scientific challenge and are the first MI team to win first in the challenge twice.

The Crazed Monkeys, a fifth-grade team from Lakeridge Elementary, took home second place in the engineering challenge with their fantastic presentation about the Wright brothers. Their presentation was told in the style of a modern circus with stilt walkers, juggling, unicycle riding and original music.

Several other MI teams placed in the top 10 for their challenges: Nimwelgn (fifth place in middle level scientific), Maroon 4 (sixth place in senior level service learning), DI-monds in the Sky (sixth place in senior level scientific), DI-ing of Laughter (sixth place in senior level technical), DI Maniacs (seventh place in middle level technical), D.I.sasters (12th place in middle level technical) and No Brainer (15th place in elementary technical).

Global Finals was the conclusion to a great year for our Destination Imagination program. This year, 133 students from 4th-12th grade participated in 21 teams. Students spent 1-3 hours a week for 20 weeks getting ready for the first competition and then worked even more if they moved on to the state and Global Finals competitions.

In addition to creating a story that connects to their specific challenge, they delve into skills such as designing and creating technically sophisticated sets and props, crafting costumes and incorporating “Team Choice Elements” that feature individual talents that can help add originality and craftsmanship to their solution. In addition to the STEM elements of Destination Imagination, students learn the very important life skills of working collaboratively, supporting opinions with logical reasoning and respectfully considering the ideas of others.

Our Global Finals teams were the following:

The Mean Green Beans team members include: Sadie Kim, Steffi Kim, Aadyaa Singhal, Jasmine Bandrio, Rilke Dalton and Sid Siravara. The team managers are Susan Kim and Mei Ying.

Maroon 4 team members include: Tessa Baumgarten, Adele Ross, Ella Choe and Eve Pang. The team manager is Tiffin Goodman.

DI-ing of Laughter team members include: Isaac Reimer, Nikhil Kini, Jens Aoyoma, Charles Prophater, Arnav Sachan, Ethan Beresky and Elliot Chang. The team manager is Melinda Reimer.

DImonds in the Sky team members include: Esha Shroff, Clare Capasso, Guillem Sullivan, Jay Mehta, Sahaj Shah and Rowan Perez. The team manager is David Baxter.

Nimwelgn team members include: Nolan Kim, Lucas Pae, Noah Tan, William Browd, Grant Ross, Milan Urakawa and Ernie Fan. The team managers are Susan Kim and Jackie Tan.

The D.I.sasters team members include: Callie Baumgarten, Aditi Choudhary, Alice Bickel, Kanav Shah, Arshia Singhal, Viki Wang and Cecilia Fortson. The team manager is Tiffin Goodman.

DI Maniacs team members include: Oliver Reimer, Adam Augustine, Joyce Yuan, Neeraj Kini, Karace Ma, Ian Fung and Noah Chu. The team managers are Melinda Reimer, Pei Guo and Matt Augustine.

The Crazed Monkeys team members include: Mitchell Dudley, Spencer Mi, Masa Uvelli, Alfred Wang, Rishab Wishwas, Irving Sun and Bryan Hao. The team managers are Nathan Dudley and Sunny Sun.

No Brainer team members include: Teo DiPasquo, Felix Soeprono, Elliot Capasso, Rishaan Junnarkar and Augustus Brown-Howard. The team managers are Robin Li and Tom Soeprono.

Mercer Island hosted the regional Destination Imagination tournament at Islander Middle School where all 21 of our teams performed. The teams did extremely well and 14 teams advanced to the state tournament in Kennewick.

The Mercer Island program has had a long history of success and it is due in large part to the support of the Mercer Island School District, district staff and the many parents who volunteer their time as team managers, appraisers and all-around helpers.

Many of these teams are led by parent volunteers who dedicate themselves to supporting the students as they reach for the top. Our incredible parent volunteers include: Susan Kim, Mei Ying, Tiffin Goodman, Melinda Reimer, Sunny Sun, Nate Dudley, Jackie Tan, Neelam Saboo, Emily Ching, Sonal Patil, Naga Bhavana, Christina Hua, Pei Guo, Matt Augustine, Ingrid Weisse, Lesley Malakoti, Robin Li, Tom Soeprono, Nathan Dudley, Sunny Sun, Allan Velzy and Ronald Tang.

Staff team managers include Julie Langley, Elizabeth Loiselle, Darren Woods and David Baxter. Baxter also acts as program coordinator and Weston Lucas is the fantastic administrative assistant who supports the program with accounting and countless other tasks.

Congratulations to all the teams on their hard work and achievements.