“Imagination is more important than knowledge.
Knowledge is limited.
Imagination encircles the world!” - Albert Einstein

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

1. What is Destination ImagiNation ?

Destination ImagiNation® is a non-profit corporation supported by Affiliates throughout the world working together to offer a global, youth-centered, creative problem-solving program.

Call it Creativity 101, describe it as "thinking outside of the box," say it's the things they don't teach you in your regular classes at school. However you describe Destination ImagiNation®, the bottom line is this: It's an important course in education.

Destination ImagiNation teaches students the things they'll need as they traverse the sometimes rocky and often challenging terrain of the school of life-- like how to tap into their own creativity, how to solve problems, and how to work together in teams. You see in math class, there may be only one right answer to a given problem, but how often is that the case in the real world?

Based on the concept of divergent thinking --understanding that there is more than one way to solve a problem-- Destination ImagiNation Challenges encourage students to build on their strengths and to discover skills they never knew they possessed.

Teams of up to seven members choose one challenge and spend several months perfecting their "solution" for tournament day. Teams also hone their on-the-spot problem solving skills as they practice coming up with solutions for Instant Challenges—additional challenges that are revealed to the teams only minutes before their presentation time! Thinking on their feet, becoming comfortable with quick decision making and further developing the team spirit are among the skills that Instant Challenges promote.

Destination ImagiNation gives kids a chance to expand on the skill and knowledge they have learned in school, albeit in a non-traditional way. Come discover how much fun creative problem solving can be. Destination ImagiNation, is one of the world's largest creativity and problem solving programs for youth of all ages, with thousands of participants from 46 US states & territories, and 31 other countries.

The Destination ImagiNation program helps kids build important, lifelong skills, such as problem solving, teamwork and divergent thinking. Teams solve two types of Challenges within the program year. The Central Team Challenge involves structural, technical or theatrical oriented Challenges and takes several months to solve. Throughout that time, the teams also practice improvisational Instant Challenges, which stimulate the team’s ability to think quickly and creatively with only minutes to prepare solutions. When tournament time rolls around, each team’s score reflects its Central Team Challenge performance plus its response to an Instant Challenge. (Courtesy of Dal Rich Region)

Back to Top

What is California Creativity?

The California Creativity Association is a non-profit corporation within the state of California working as an affiliate of Destination ImagiNation which offers this creative problem solving program within the state. The state is divided into geographical areas called Regions. These Regions offer local tournaments at different age levels to let you show your imaginations. Teams who compete and place first in their level advance to the California Creativity state tournament. First place teams at the state tournament advance to the global finals.

Back to Top

California Creativity Mission Statement

"California Creativity Association nurtures and celebrates creativity, develops team problem-solving skills and promotes divergent thinking for participants of all ages throughout California. The California Creativity Association encourages people to seek help when acquiring skills and to look within themselves for inspiration. With the skills of creativity, self-respect, cooperation and understanding of others, participants will use their knowledge to travel uncharted paths to help make the world a better place in which to live."

The California Creativity Association Pledge

"Let me be a seeker of knowledge,
Let me travel uncharted paths,
And let me use my creativity
To make the world a better place
In which to live."

Back to Top

What is California Creativity Association Best of the Bay ?

California Creativity Association Best of the Bay (formerly Region 16) provides a local creative problem solving program for the East Bay counties of Alameda, Contra Costa, and Solano. Teams from these counties participate in the Region 16 Tournament which is held every year in March. In addition, we sponsor trainings for team managers and appraisers. (See Calendar).

The region is administered by a board of directors who are local volunteers. The board meets monthly throughout the year to plan and organize the program in our area. These meetings are open to anyone who is interested in continuing and improving the creative problem solving program within the Region.

Back to Top

Why would students want to participate?

First of all, it's fun. Students acquire creative problem solving skills and learn to work as a team to solve complex challenges. Challenges are open-ended and have no single solution. Students learn to manage time and budgets. They learn how to present their solutions in front of an audience, increasing confidence and self-esteem. They work in a supportive environment in which all ideas are team-generated so that they have ownership of the solution. They will be acquiring skills and experience which will be useful in life, but are not formally taught in school.

Back to Top

After registering, you will begin with team building exercises. Then you will study and understand the Challenges, followed by brainstorming of solutions.

Work to refine the technical elements, props, costumes, script, etc., then more refining and rehearsing.

Practice continuously for instant challenges.

Make local trips for junk and supplies.

Practice dry-runs.

Tournament time, March through May - regional, state and global.

Back to Top

What are the two parts of the tournament ?

The Destination ImagiNation program has two components revolving around a special theme each year. Each team participating in a tournament will compete in both of these components.

1. "Instant Challenges" - Instant challenges teach students to take what life is handing them moment to moment. These challenges spark and quickly capture the team members' wild imaginations by requiring them to solve a challenge on the spot. Students practice "Improv" using unusual materials and verbal responses to get out of "sticky" situations. With this component, students will learn creativity skills, divergent and convergent thinking, risk taking, time awareness, cooperation, and have oodles of FUN!

2. "Team Challenges  - Teams use art, technology, performance, and real world relevance as they tackle one of the five Team Challenges open to all levels. The Team Challenges solution can take from several weeks to several months to develop. But the team's solution is not complete until they receive the "Improv Item" from the appraisers just before the presentation! Every team challenge has two parts: one which is unique to each challenge and the other which has five smaller categories (artistic, technical, performance, relevance, and improvisational) which are the same for all challenges. With this component, challenge solvers utilize the skills learned in Instant Challenges to stretch their imaginations and develop task commitment and life-skills valuable in any nation of the world.

Back to Top

What are levels at the tournaments ?

Levels divide the tournament competitions into 5 age groups. A single membership can field one team in each level for each challenge.

The different age levels your membership may cover include;

1. PL Primary Level, Grades K-2 or 5-9 years old.

2. EL Elementary Level, Grades K-5 OR no student reaching
the age of 12 by June 15.

3. ML Intermediate Level, Grades 6-8 OR no student reaching the age of 15 by June 15.

4. SL Secondary Level, Grades 9-12 OR no student reaching the age of 19 by June 15.

5. UL University/Military Level, High School graduate or equivalency and enrolled full-time as a college/university or technical school student OR High School graduate serving in the military.

Back to Top

Who can join as members?

You must purchase a Destination ImagiNation Membershiprt in order to participate.  There are two kinds of Memberships: Individual and 5-Pak.

The 1-Team Pak Membership allows a school, school program, college, university, military, community group, home school program, parent group, club or business to put together a team of no more that seven participants and register one team. However, Individual Teams need not be affiliated with a school or group.

The 5-Team Pak Membership allows an individual school, multiple schools with a total of fewer than 500 students, multi-school programs with a single itinerant teacher, or a recognized local chapter of a community organization that serves children such as Boy Scout Troops and Girl Scout Troops, 4-H clubs, PTA/PTOs to register up to five competitive teams in any Team Challenge at any Level plus an unlimited number of non-competitive Primary Teams.

Back to Top

How do I sign up a membership and/or team ?

Buy at DI, Register here at californiacreativity.org, Contact your Regional Director

Work with your school or other non-profit organization to sponsor a DI membership.

Form teams and recruit Team Managers.

Identify a contact person.

Individual teams must also register with Best of the Bay in order to participate in the local tournament. The Best of the Bay registration packet will be available on this website soon. Contact the Regional Director to schedule an "Info Night" for your group.

Back to Top

How can I help out as a volunteer?

The program throughout the state of California is run entirely by volunteers. You can get involved as a volunteer in any one of a number of ways.

We are ALWAYS looking for people to help appraise at the Best of the Bay Tournament. This is by far the most fun thing you can do as an adult to help out California Creativity Best of the Bay! Seeing a dozen teams of kids presenting the solutions to their challenges is so much fun that we have people return to appraise year after year. To be an appraiser takes just two days of your time. One day is used to train our judging teams and one day to actually appraise at the tournament. If this sounds like your kind of thing, contact our Regional Director for more information.

Other roles include:

Team Manager/Assistant - Person over 18 in charge of scheduling meetings, tournament registration, safety and adherence to rules.

Timer/Announcer - Fun job at tournaments.

Tournament Official - Doorkeeper, Number Cruncher, etc.

Parent helper - Snacks, errands, transporting/storing props, skill presentations, etc.

We are also looking for Best of the Bay board members. We have a working board in that every member helps out in some way running our tournament. The board meets on the first Monday of every month. A lot goes into putting on a tournament so finding a job that matches your interest is easy. If you are interested please contact the Regional Director or one of the other board members for more information.

Back to Top

Each team must have at least one adult (18 years of age or older) registered as its Team Manager of record. Each membership has the right to determine who this person will be. The TM is generally responsible for recruiting, selecting and training the team. The TM may NOT work on the team challenge solution. The TMs responsibilities often include presenting the team challenge to the team, conducting brainstorming sessions to develop solutions to the team challenge, conducting and evaluating instant challenge practice sessions, helping the team obtain the materials and knowledge necessary to solve the team challenge, supervising practice sessions, accompanying the team to competitions, and representing the team should a problem occur. The Team Manager can help the team by having guest speakers visit and talk about general principles that may be useful in solving the challenges, by showing films, and by suggesting resources that give the team basic techniques with which it may work. In short, a Team Manager is an adult facilitator, administrator, and supporter of a team. No special skills or talents are necessary to be a TM, you just need to be ready to have a great time.

Back to Top