Challenge Previews

TECHNICAL CHALLENGE

The Technical Challenge prompts students to complete tasks by using engineering, research, strategic planning, and related skills.

Build it up and knock it down! In this Challenge, your team will go from the highest heights to the lowest lows as you use team-created equipment to build and destroy stacks of items. What will a character do when their greatest wishes encounter a frustration point? Will it all come tumbling down? Find out in this season’s Technical Challenge!

Design and build assembly equipment and destruction equipment.
Use the assembly equipment to create a stack of items.
Use the destruction equipment to disassemble and/or destroy the stack.
Create and present a story about a character who lacks something important and attempts to gain it.
Create and present two Team Choice Elements that show off the team’s interests, skills, areas of strength, and talents.

ENGINEERING CHALLENGE

Our Engineering Challenge asks students to explore and apply engineering skills and tools to design and build solutions to specific applications.

Come one, come all to the greatest show on Earth! Join us for a daring feat of high-wire innovation as you test a transporter that will carry weights along a tournament-provided cord. Present a story in the style of contemporary circus and don’t forget to include a daring display! This season’s Engineering Challenge isn’t clowning around!

Design and build a transporter that will be tested during the team’s Presentation.
Complete weight transport tests to test how much weight the transporter can carry along a tournament-provided cord at various angles.
Create and present a story in the style of contemporary circus.
Include a daring display and an ensemble spectacle in the Presentation.
Create and present two Team Choice Elements that show off the team’s interests, skills, areas of strength, and talents.

SCIENTIFIC CHALLENGE

Our Scientific Challenge blends the curiosity of scientific research with the creative expression of performance art.

Space, the final frontier…join us for this season’s Scientific Challenge as you explore the cosmos. Your team will tell a story about a character who figures out they are not alone on a planet. Show off your science fiction skills with some out-of-this-world technobabble. What will happen when you go beyond the stars?

Create and present a story in which a character who is located on a planet other than Earth thinks they are alone but discovers that they are not.
Include technobabble in the story.
Design and build a device and/or effect that demonstrates what the technobabble describes.
Include a scientific demonstration that shows the science behind why a specific phenomenon of the planet happens and/or exists.
Create and present two Team Choice Elements that show off the team’s interests, skills, areas of strength, and talents.

FINE ARTS CHALLENGE

Our Fine Arts Challenge helps students develop acting and creative skills through artistic media, theater arts, scriptwriting, and prop design

How can the simplest of things convey the most? Your team will tell a story about something small that can have a big impact and move the audience with an emotional moment. Be strategic with your use of color and shape as you design a big visual impact with your set. It’s time to explore minimalism in this season’s Fine Arts Challenge!

Create and present a story about how something small and/or simple can create a big impact.
Include a focal character in the story.
Include an emotional moment in the story.
Design and create a minimalist set.
Create and present two Team Choice Elements that show off the team’s interests, skills, areas of strength, and talents.

Improvisational Challenge

Our Improvisational Challenge is all about research, spontaneity, and storytelling. Teams receive topics and quickly produce skits.

From beginning to end, we must travel a path to get where we want to go! Use your improvisational skills to tell a story about a character traveling between two locations. Include a character who is trying to find something and a detour that causes an unforeseen change in the plan or route. It’s time to hit the road with this season’s Improvisational Challenge!

Create and present an improvisational skit about a traveling character.
Research locations and show the character’s route between a starting location and an ending location.
Research modes of transportation and incorporate one into the skit.
Include a seeker and a detour in the skit.

Service Learning Challenge

Our Service Learning Challenge is designed to engage students in public service that addresses real-life community issues.

Left or right, apple or orange, smile or frown…the world is full of choices! Your team will tell a story about a character who must make a critical choice after considering potential outcomes. A binary device will enhance your Presentation by completing two tasks at once! Where will your decisions lead in this season’s Service Learning Challenge?

Identify, design, carry out, and evaluate a project that addresses a need in a real community.
Create and present a story about a character who must make a critical choice.
Include at least two potential outcomes and a complication in the story.
Include a device that completes two different tasks from the same initiation in the Presentation.
Create and present two Team Choice Elements that show off the team’s interests, skills, areas of strength, and talents.

Early Learning Challenge

Our Rising Stars for Early Learners Challenge offers simple experiences with the creative process, and it gives young kids (preschool through 2nd grade) a place to work together and make new friends.

Rain, snow, wind, sun, and hail! There are so many different kinds of weather and lots of wonderful activities that can only be done during the perfect kind of weather. Your team will tell a story about a character who is learning about one kind of weather for the very first time. It’s a great day for some outdoor fun!

Research different kinds of weather.
Create and present a play about a character learning about a kind of weather for the very first time.
Include a teacher character and a special weather activity in the story.
Design and create a weather costume and a weather special effect.
Create and present one Team Choice Element that shows off the team’s interests, skills, areas of strength, and talents.

Instant Challenge

All teams will have the opportunity to solve an Instant Challenge. These challenges require teams to engage in quick, creative and critical thinking.

In a world with growing cultural connections, increased levels and types of communication, and a new need for real-time teamwork and problem-solving, the ability to solve problems quickly is becoming increasingly critical.

Each team will be asked to solve an Instant Challenge for their DI tournament. The team must think on their feet by applying appropriate skills to produce a solution in a short period of time.

Instant Challenges are performance-based, task-based, or a combination of the two. Although each Instant Challenge has different requirements, all Instant Challenges reward teams for their teamwork. Instant Challenges are kept confidential until it is time for teams to solve them.