Ely kids returning to Global Finals

If it’s spring, it’s time for school students to take a field trip.Ely’s sixth-graders make an annual visit to the Environmental Learning Center past Isabella. Valleyfair, the Soudan Mine, Twins games and Duluth’s Omnimax Theater are also popular destinations, and kids from schools around the state have come to Ely to visit the International Wolf Center.And for a small group of creative and talented Ely eighth-graders, a trip to Tennessee and competition in the world championships of a creativity competition has become a rite of spring.For the fourth time in five years, Ely will send a team to the Destination ImagiNation Global Finals, set for May 25-28 in Nashville.Seven Ely students formed the team that captured the state championship at Eden Prairie last month.Now, they’re getting ready, raising money and counting down the days until their trip south.“They are extremely excited,” said Joan Kjorsvig, who has advised the team since its inception several years ago. “I’m going to say they’re even more excited than even the first time. They’ve worked so hard, and they’d really like to be in the top three and get one of those trophies.”Three team members - Cynthia Beans, Matt Kidd and Mychal Ivancich - have been part of all four Global Finals squads. Kit Anderson joined the team in 2002, when they qualified for the Global Finals for a second time. Matt Hall, Tom Klun and Abby Zupancich have joined since then. All but Klun were part of the squad in 2003, when as sixth-graders they advanced to Tennessee, took fourth-place in the world competition and won DI’s prestigious da Vinci Award.This time around, the Ely team will compete against approximately 60 teams at the Global Finals, representing 47 states and 13 countries.Designed to help kids build skills such as problem solving, teamwork and divergent thinking, Destination ImagiNation (DI) promotes the teaching of creativity among students from kindergarten through college.Teams solve two types of challenges within the program year. The team challenge involves structural, technical or theatrically oriented challenges that take several months to solve.Throughout that time, teams also practice improvisational instant challenges, which stimulate the team’s ability to think quickly and creatively with just minutes to prepare solutions.Kjorsvig has watched the Ely group take on bigger and bolder challenges as they’ve progressed through the ranks.“They’re just amazing,” she said of the Ely contingent. “It has to be 100 percent their work and ideas. Watching them (trying to solve a problem) I can’t help but have my own ideas but everytime I think about how I would do it, their idea is always better... They work hard, do a lot of brainstorming, and they take one person’s idea and meld them into another’s idea.”The solution to the long-term challenge is presented in skit format during competition.This year’s problem was dubbed “Dizzy Derby.”“The problem is to create a vehicle that can carry one of the team members around a triangular track,” said Kjorsvig. “Two right angle sides are 12 feet long. Points are given for the number of laps they complete as well as bonus points for detours.”The Ely group has 10 different detours, ranging from changing tires to adding passengers to lifting their vehicle.They created a vehicle, which looks like a grocery shopping cart, that can complete a lap in six seconds.“They designed their own clutch system and made it from various go-car parts and that type of thing,” said Kjorsvig. “The vehicle scored very well. They got all the points they could obtain for engineering and construction.“They anticipated that (Dizzy Derby) had a lot to do with autos and car racing and they chose to make their (skit) about something different. They’ve based their skit about a dad who arrives to a grocery store eight minutes ahead of closing time and he has to go shopping. The kids cause all of the detours.”The group used various junk car parts to make sculptures, including shoppers and cashiers.And as part of a sideshow, they recycled products into costumes, including making a dress out of 2,800 pop can tabs that they wove together.“They have worked so hard,” said Kjorsvig. “You can just imagine how many hours went into weaving that many pop tabs.”In competition, teams are judged in three areas: the effectiveness of the solution to the long-term challenge, the style of the solution and its overall effect and the solution to an instant challenge given to teams the day of competition.The Ely team’s experience, dedication and creativity paid off with a big win at the state level, and the group is already researching their competition and shooting for a high finish at the Global Finals.Getting there is a task in itself. Several different fundraising projects are underway to help the team raise the $6,000 or so needed to make the trip.The Ely team will share a coach bus with teams from Alexandria and St. Paul, who won state titles in other age brackets, but funding is needed to pay for their share of the transportation as well as lodging in Tennessee.The group held a car wash over the weekend and will sell freezes during lunch period at the school the next two weeks. Also in the works is a May 21 spaghetti dinner at the high school cafeteria, and a “Really Big Raffle.” Tickets will be sold for $1 each or six for $5, with prizes including Minnesota Twins Tickets, steak packages from Zup’s, and items from Wintergreen Designs, BaskeTree, Piragis Northwoods Company and Brandenburg Gallery.Contributions may be made to Destination ImagiNation, in care of the Ely schools at 600 East Harvey Street, Ely, 55731.