World’s largest celebration of creativity hosts record-breaking attendance from teams worldwide

A team of seven seniors from College Park’s Academy of Science and Technology was awarded 1st place at DI Global Finals. Destination Imagination (DI), a non-profit organization dedicated to fostering students’ curiosity, courage and creativity through open-ended STEM, fine arts and service learning Challenges, boasted a record number of teams in Global Finals 2015, the world’s largest celebration of creativity, May 20-23 at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, Tennessee.

Seniors Andrew Cahill, Paulome Srivastava, Victoria Youngblood, Nicole Chin, Erik Young, Kayla Kelly and Sarah Mohamed have attended Global Finals for three years in a row, but felt like this year’s performance was something very special.

“I’m glad I got to wrap up the last 3 years of craziness with some of my best friends, a great trip, an amazing performance and no sleep. This is one of the lasts I will miss the most,” said Andrew Cahill.

The challenge they selected was called Feary Tales with the requirements to have a fairy tale type story with a character with a phobia, an optical illusion, and 2 types of art. Their pride and joy was the chameleon costume programmed with lights that changed as the animal’s moods changed which they said took over 100 hours of work to accomplish.

Global Finals is the culminating international competition for the Destination Imagination season. At the event, teams from around the world are invited to participate in one of six different academic challenges to showcase their skills in creativity and innovation. The Challenge program is developed annually to ensure the competitions are relevant and align with National Education Standards, STEM standards, ELA Common Core Standards and Mathematics Common Core Standards.

“Destination Imagination is encouraging and challenging more and more students every year,” said Dr. Chuck Cadle, CEO of Destination Imagination, Inc.

Two other Academy teams also placed high in the competition. The technical team made of juniors Anna Cunningham, Caroline Booth, Makenzie Higdon, Jack Overbeck, Dylan Stobart, Jheri’ Richards, and Nick Esposito finished in 3rd place. The senior team made of Heather Morriss, Kennedy Sterling, Jack Dimpel, Priya Srivastava, Collin Bryant, Wenting Chang, and Tess Volanski finished in 4th place in the technical challenge.

“This is the best showing ever at Globals for the Academy DI teams,” team manager Bobby Lowenberg said.

Presented by Disney, this year’s academic competition hosted more than 17,000 students and volunteers, and featured 1,400 teams. Eighty percent of the teams came from 48 U.S. states. Twenty percent were made up of international participants from 20 countries with China as the leader, closely followed by Canada, Turkey, Qatar, South Korea and Mexico.

“Disney’s vision to inspire imagination and creativity in children aligns perfectly with our mission at Destination Imagination,” said Dr. Chuck Cadle, CEO of Destination Imagination, Inc. “Together we are committed to the offering 21st century programs that foster future inventors, while supporting and inspiring young people worldwide.”

About Destination Imagination

Destination Imagination, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) volunteer-led non-profit organization whose purpose is to inspire and equip students to become the next generation of innovators and leaders. The most popular education offering is the Challenge Program, where student teams solve open-ended STEM, arts and service learning Challenges and present their solutions to trained Appraisers. Founded in 1982, Destination Imagination has impacted more than 1.5 million students. To learn more, please visit http://destinationimagination.org.