The people side of DI

My introduction to DI began last fall when my 6th grader called me after school to tell me he'd signed up for DI (for what?) and could I pick him up after school. I had no idea what we were in for at that time. It has been an incredible experience. I've enjoyed watching my son grow through the year, develop a new found self confidence, work through the challenges of being a team member, and develop a sense of humor ("I'm the top banana of the USDA, but you can call me Mr. Top Banana of the USDA" all while eating a banana and wearing a hat decorated with 3 plastic bananas during global competition). I'm really proud of the way the AMS Team A responded to glitches in their unidentified moving object competition. While they were very disappointed in their performance due to an equipment malfunction, they held it together in a very professional manner throughout their 8 minutes. The next day they came back for the instant challenge with very positive, can do attitudes rather than letting the previous day impact their next performance. They did a great job of representing themselves, AMS, and Iowa.

Words can't describe the global competition experience. Even with all the helpful hints from global experienced Moms, I wasn't prepared for 4 days of sensory overload and lack of sleep. You have to experience it yourself to really understand it. The eat, sleep, DI t-shirt posted on this site begins to touch on the experience. The best part of the event was the people side. We adopted the Maple Valley team when we learned their town of Mapleton had been hit by a tornado in April. We had the opportunity to meet the kids and watch them compete. They are an awesome group of kids and connected with our kids as if they'd been friends for a long time. I saw our own team members trade away prized pins to obtain a pin they knew was wanted by a teammate or parent. The joy of giving the pin to that person was more important than the pin they traded away. I saw adults in the pin trading tent give away a pin that they knew someone really wanted and didn't accept a pin in trade. Instead they asked that the person pay it forward by giving one of their pins to someone who didn't have very many pins. I had the opportunity to see huge smiles on a young boy and young girl who were recipients of those pay it forward pins. The kindness and generosity demonstrated will be remembered long after the global competition has concluded.

Thanks to everyone who supported these kids in their goal to participate in DI and to go to globals. These kids gained from the experience in many more ways than just competing at an international event.

Posted by Sabrina Swenson

Trip

The trip was awesome. I hope to do it again next year. I was thinking about doing D.I. next year but now I want to for sure. Although we took 37th we still did good because there was 69 teams. I had fun meeting the Maple Valley team. They had some really good ideas for the problem.


Posted by: Justin Swenson

DI By the Numbers

People ask, how big is DI, is it really a big deal to go to Globals? The answer is YES!  It's a big deal

• DI Headquarters state over 335,000 kids participated this past year globally in DI.  (That's over 47,500  - 7 person teams world-wide)
• Each team can have a minimum of 2 members and maximum of 7
• The four teams from Iowa that we knew about had 4, 4, 6 and 3 members each - so many teams do not have the full 7 members)
• 1101 teams competed at Globals -- that's it.  Out of over 47,500 teams, only 1101 moved on to Globals
• Number of participants at Globals would range from 2202 kids to 7707 kids depending on the number of kids on a team .  It's more like 5000-6000 kids total that participated.
• Attendence last week at Globals counting kids, parents, school coaches, appraisers, volunteers, grandparents, etc was around 12,000 to 13,000 people.

Other interesting notes:

• Average hours of sleep for adults during the week  - let me get back to you, I'm too sleep deprived to figure that out.
• Number of times kids ask to pin trade or go to the pool - too many to count
• Number of times we heard "I lost the back to one of my pins" - only about 100,000 times
• Number of times we heard "did you see what they were.... wearing, what color their hair was -- a couple times a day
• The smiles and saucersized eyes when the kids looked around  - priceless

Thanks for all your support for the Ames DI Teams.

Jeanne

Pin Trading was cool or hot or awesome

As mentioned previously in the blog, pin trading at Globals is a big deal.  We order our state pins (volcanos) and trade with other states and countries.  We also have a MuddiWaters set that is 8 states that border the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers.  We get eight of our MuddiWaters pin ( a pleisosaur is Iowa's pin this year) and trade for the remainder of the set with other states.  Other states that are part of the MuddiWaters include Nebraska (sabertooth tiger), Montana (triceratops), South Dakota (Wooly Mammoth), Illinois (T-Rex), Wisconsin (Stegasosaurus), North Dakota (Diplodacus), Missouri (igaunadon). 

They designate areas (and LARGE tents) for pin trading areas, trading also goes on in dorm and hotel lobbies, on the buses, and at the pools.  Dr. Frank is the pin trading guru and sets the rules and pin trading areas.  Dr. Frank is legendary and dyes his mustache rainbow colors for the week and wears knee pads so when he kneels down to trade he has some cushion. 

Here's a sample of pin trading...

Parents picking more pins!

One of several Pin Trading Tents - it's huge and
has large fans to keep things cool!

Jacob  (in blue baseball hat - not the cool cow hat)

Jacob and Dr. Frank, gotta love the mustache!

Justin checking out what he wants to trade

Look at all those pin traders! These type of crowds were
in tents all over the campus. 

AMS Team and their pin mats

Adults can also trade pins and a few of us did a little trading but left it mostly to the kids.  Pin backs are a hot commodity since dragging around a pin mat can cause "loss of pin back" and potential loss of pin, so most of us parents spent our time watching pin trading and collecting pin backs to replace those that our kids lost.  I had quite a few conversations with parents as we walked around picking up pin backs. 





It's not all work - it's fun and games too

We've decided that we are boring.  We had lovely green Iowa DI t-shirts with a volcano on them because our theme was "we are exploding with creativity"  - I offered to purchase the shirt seen below -- I really love this shirt and felt by Thursday it was a perfect fit for our days and nights at Globals

Yep, that about sums up the week!

Ok, we did feed them. 

And we did let them have some down time -
this is the big Univ of Tennessee pool

The Castle is a prop assembled on site by a group of high school girls from Delano, Minnesota
and the batman costumes were cool and costumes like this were very common around DI this week.

What we learned was we need to work more on backdrops and costumes.  We also decided that we need face paint and colored hair.  We saw hair dyed in almost any color, boys with DI cut into their hair, we saw an adult man with his beard dyed purple and green to support his team.  Hats and duct tape -- we didn't use enough!  Glow in the dark hats will be necessary for any future trip to DI Globals and if we can decorate those hat with duct tape, well that will be even better! 



Ames Middle School Challenge

The AMS team had some challenges to overcome at Globals, equipment that broke during the performance, difficulty with the recordings, but they perservered and completed the tasks.  They did extremely well on their Instant Challenge portion of the competition and finished 37th in the world.  We keep saying that we are proud of all of our kids (Meeker and the AMS teams) and we are.  They were poised, kept trying when things broke or things didn't go their way and thanked the appraisers.   In contrast we saw teams fall apart, throw things, blame each other and break down when things did not go perfect - even with our teams having problems, they never lost their cool, never showed they were upset and that's what Globals is all about!

Here's some photos of the AMS Challenge

Entering the Challenge Site

On the "launch line" - you have to wait behind the line for the 8 minute time limit to begin

The team working the challenge  - that is one tall tower -
|notice the appraiser with the purple octopus hat!

The final bow! 
Look at those smiles!

Meeker Team Challenge

I'm late in getting things posted, they really keep you busy!  The Meeker team was VERY early on Thursday morning.  Performance time was 8:54 AM.  We have to be ready with all equipment checked, all members present and all costumes and scenery assembled by 7:54 AM.  Our assigned housing is a Holiday Inn 25 minutes away.  Which meant a very early morning after a late night at Opening Ceremonies.  It helped that Jacob and Devin who arrived early went over to the Prop Storage on Wednesday and assembled the backdrop and checked the equipment, so we could save about an hour on Thursday morning.  Prop storage is crazy and we'll have more on that later.

The Challenge --- They did great!  Globals added more complexity and really (and I mean really) tightened the rules.  They were nervous but stepped up to the challenge.  They moved all their objects but had problems with touching the sides of the pool (a new rule at Globals - along with 2 ft more height and 6" of water).  The moved all their objects but only got credit for 5 of the 8 because of the "touching the sides" rule.  Many others were having the same problem.  We'll only really know how they did after Closing Ceremonies.    We are so proud of them and they represented Ames and Meeker with poise, creativity and politeness (the parents liked that last part!).   Here's some photos:

On the launch line - do they look nervous (you should have seen the parents!)

Putting it together

The Sales Promotion!

Moving the objects - such teamwork!

TIME!  - the Final Bow to an appreciative audience

 More and better photos later -

Jeanne