HomeMy WebLinkAbout047 Actor Scientists PRoclamation - Word - 06.16.2003 (2) Posted on Thu, May. 15, 2003
Actor-scientists make global finals
IMAGINATION, IMPROVISATION KEY FOR FIRST-PLACE STUDENT TEAMS
By Michael Cronk
Mercury News
Creative problem solving. Thinking on your feet. Reading between the lines and being able to
improvise.
Those were among the qualities groups of elementary, middle and high school students from
Santa Clara County displayed in making it to the Destination ImagiNation global finals later
this month in Nashville, Tenn.
A team from Portal Elementary School in Cupertino, seven teens from the Fremont Union High
School District and a team from Rolling Hills Middle School in Los Gatos qualified by taking first
place honors in their various categories at the California state finals held in April in Clovis.
The way they did it was as varied as the challenges tossed their way by the judges with
Destination ImagiNation, one of the world's largest creativity and problem-solving programs
for youths of all ages. The students had to "solve" problems ranging from the technical or
mechanical to the historical and theatrical, without any adult help and on a budget of no more
than $100.
The Portal team of fifth-graders Karan Chitnis, Dylan Daniels, Salman Husaini, and Tony
Parng, and fourth-grader Daniel Ki, tackled a structural engineering problem. They had to
build a wood structure weighing less than 50 grams and connected in at least five places
without the use of adhesives that could hold a load of up to 500 pounds. After a crash course
in structural engineering and advanced mathematics, the students came up with a cylinder-
shaped, 23.3-gram balsa wood structure that carried a load of 482 pounds.
And not only that, team members had to build and test the structure while performing a
theatrical presentation for the judges.
Besides winning against 14 other California high school teams in the "Theater smARTS'"
Challenge, the FUHSD Destination ImagiNation Club was also honored with the Da Vinci Award
for displaying exceptional creativity in its eight-minute production. Members spent months
working on their performance, which included solving the challenge problem, writing the
script, and making the costumes and scenery.
The team members are Christine Cardosi, Aaron Hunter, Matthew Pecot, Patrick Samuels and
Chris Wollman from Fremont High School in Sunnyvale, and Thomas Oldfield and Kevin Holt
from Monta Vista and Homestead high schools, respectively, in Cupertino.
The "Llamas" -- Rolling Hills seventh-graders Lauren Crow, Jenna Johnson, Vidya Kaipa, Kimi
Lyons and Kelly Langstaff -- won in the "Once Improv a Time" Challenge, an improvisational
theater challenge. The team was given elements from different fairy tales, using just
newspaper and tape, and had 30 minutes to come up with a performance incorporating them
in a ' 'surprise" setting.
The team, which competed last year as ' 'The Flying Corndogs," put together a six-minute
presentation involving the Princess and the Pea, Pinocchio, Rumplestiltskin and a cornfield.
Together for four years, team members have learned to pool their individual talents.
By ourselves we're not that good," said Kelly. But, when we're working together, we're
really good."
Kelly and Jenna make up the songs. Kimi, the smallest, often portrays children in the
presentations and uses her gymnastics skills doing cartwheels and handstands. Lauren and
Vidya, says Kelly, ' 'play old ladies really well and are really funny."
We all do musical theater so we're pretty comfortable in front of an audience," said Jenna,
13.
The local teams will be joining more than 800 teams from 47 states and more than a dozen
countries are at the global competition, scheduled May 20-25 in Nashville.