DaVincI Award
For Outstanding Creativity

The paths we follow on our journeys were once uncharted and unknown – until someone took a bold step in a new direction and paved a way for us to follow. To solve our Challenges, imagination, creativity, originality, and courage are required. We honor those individuals and teams who most clearly demonstrate that spirit of adventurous risk in their solutions - those who most creatively traveled to reach truly new and unique destinations. The DaVincI Award is named to honor one of humanity's greatest creative thinkers, Leonardo DaVinci.

This award is given for having a unique approach to a solution, for risk taking, and/or for outstanding creativity, not skill or talent.

 

With its unexpected combination of characters, unique depiction of the featured creature, talking geological formation and a Side Trip offering a panorama of changing backdrops, almost every aspect of this team’s performance leapt out of the rhetorical box! The team built a life size model of its Featured Creature, cleverly manipulated by a team member from a box underneath. The rock formation in their set came to life -- giving us all a lesson on fumaroles, and bringing the creature’s habitat literally to life. The key to the mystery of just how a baby elephant would end up on the island home of the Komodo dragon was explained in a simple, yet visually arresting way by the team-created “Thought Theater.” Dragons and elephants … definitely a winning combination!

 

 

You could almost feel the wind in your hair and see the roller coaster conjured up by this team. From the clackety-clack of washers mimicking the coaster’s rise to the top to the spot-on spiel by the roller coaster announcer, the audience could feel like it was in the coaster as team members swayed to-and-fro. We completely understood when one member of the team proclaimed afterward she would “never ride that again!”

 

This team exhibited exceptional creativity in displaying their merged “art form.” Using mosaic art and origami, they created a masterpiece that was artistically displayed and visually stunning. Each piece of the mosaic consisted of an origami art form, including hundreds of tiny, 3-D stars of all sizes and colors, flowers, pin wheels, and frogs. The total count of origami pieces in this great mosaic exceeded 1500. This team exhibited true dedication to their “art forms” and the extreme creativity DI is all about. Their intricate design, countless hours of construction, and perseverance earns them the DaVinci Award in our eyes! In addition to the previously mentioned merged art form, this team was intricate and thorough with every aspect of their performance. As we observed their backdrops and props, we continued to find new things. On the backdrop alone, there was a Hello Kitty mosaic made from hole punched paper pieces, rice, and beads. Beyond the origami mosaic they also had origami decorations throughout their set – an origami tree with more than 200 pieces on a tree of broken structures, complex decahedrons of all sizes. Again, this team spent an insane amount of time constructing origami pieces and other parts of the set. They truly possess outstanding creativity!

 

 

 

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The Renaissance Award
For Outstanding Design, Engineering, Execution, Performance

On our journey we sometimes encounter exceptional travelers who entertain and enlighten us along the way. The Renaissance Award recognizes those among us who demonstrate extraordinary amounts of effort and preparation in their solutions or outstanding skill in engineering, design or performance. While the destination is creativity, these fellow travelers make the journey itself memorable.

Recipients:

 

This teams’ ingenious use of water bottles, clear plastic tubing, and food coloring on a plain white background made invisible lettering come to life like a neon sign. Squeezing the water bottle forced the colored water through the tubing, creating the sign, and when the bottle was released it became invisible again. This team’s creative engineering was an ingenious way to portray the well known aspect of Charlotte’s web. “Some Team!”

 

This team showed exceptional commitment to their two art forms and spent a great deal of time to create 1000 origami cranes. Their mosaics were also personally made and set by each and every team member. We feel this team deserves the Renaissance Award for their hard work and creativity in creating a wall of 1000 cranes.

 

This team went above and beyond in the realm of changing bad habits into good. They collected physical fitness data over a period of six weeks while holding healthy food tastings on the “off” days. This team evaluated data AND communicated it back to the students and parents via a weekly newsletter created entirely by the four team members. The newsletter included food tasting results, a new recipe (for their new favorite food!), “Did You Know …”, and other great information. The newsletter was the perfect bow for the gift of lifelong healthy habits.

 

 

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From its very beginning, Destination ImagiNation® has been a community. The recipients of this award are the ones who go out of their way to help others, making sacrifices not for themselves, but to give something to someone else. We recognize and applaud these members of our community who demonstrate outstanding and extraordinary levels of sportsmanship, volunteerism and spirit, be they Team Managers, Team Members, Officials or other helpful DI friends and volunteers.

 

This team, like many before them had a structure that was holding far more than they expected. How they reacted however, was something no one on the Appraisal team had ever seen in all of their combined years. The team brought every team member over and all seven of them lifted each weight together, and with each five pounds, their excitement grew. This team’s camaraderie and pure exuberance in Prep Area and on stage demonstrated how much they enjoyed working together and truly exemplified the Spirit of DI!

 

 

 

This team’s journey to health and fitness began in Guatemala at a severely impoverished school. The lessons learned at this site and the appreciation gained for healthy eating led this team to organize seven distinct events in their home district. Each event targeted either healthy eating or healthy activity. The Spirit of DI is truly captured throughout this project as the team raised more than $6,000 in donations for their Guatemalan school to buy healthy food for their students.