By Natalie De La Garza
Staff Writer
LIMESTONE — Limestone’s upper-level destination teams are in the zone — quite literally.
“We usually spend eight to 10 hours a week fundraising, and we usually have a three hour practice every Thursday,” said team member Alyssa Sinclair.
Her teammates — Glen Kleinert, Kelly Clavet, Megan Mullenix and Kareena Woodworth — agreed that the workload for the extracurricular activity ranges between 8-13 hours a week, even though recent activity has leaned toward the 13-hour side of the spectrum.
Contributed photo
Limestone’s Champion Destination ImagiNation for the high school level worked hard to win States — and they’re ready to take on Globals in Tennessee later this month. The winning team is, front row: Meagn Mullenix. From left, back row: Kareena Woodworth, Alyssa Sinclair, Kelly Clavet and Glen Kleinert.
For months, the team has been perfecting their challenge for Destination ImagiNation — save a week, right after the team won States.
“I enjoyed our victory at States for about a week before we had to start fundraising and getting things more organized for Nationals,” Woodworth said.
Their coach, Pat Allen, explained that the “In the Zone” challenge involves engineering, physical concepts of motion and energy, measurements, geometry, critical thinking, creativity and collaboration.
“Students had to present an original story about vehicles and the dangers they face when driving — told from the point of view of the vehicles,” she said.
The students were challenged to create at least three vehicles that used different power sources such as electricity, gravity, wind, pneumatic, solar, magnetic and hydraulic sources, and the vehicles had to be capable of traveling reliably and accurately over specific distances.
“I’m proud of the cars the most, considering we worked really hard on them,” said Clavet.
Kleinert agreed, explaining that he’s not only proud of the work he put into the vehicles himself — he’s proud of the work extended by his teammates.
The cars are one of Sinclair’s sources of pride, but she’s also proud of the artistry that went in to crafting the scenes and the hard work she put into writing the play.
“I think that our scenes and cars best represent our strengths,” Sinclair said.
One of such scenes is of a Portland lighthouse.
“I’m most proud of the Portland lighthouse scene because it turned out beautifully and we all got to work on a little piece of it,” Woodworth said, explaining that the three sets created by the group is probably one of their best strengths.
But the whole process — the cars, the scenes, the script and the concept, has developed continuously over the months.
“It started out slow with a ton of brainstorming sessions,” Allen explained. “Once some ideas started flowing and were agreed upon, the team began to solve their challenges — but this is a process with new ideas always coming into play,” she added, “there never is a finished project.”
Whether the high-schoolers are working indepedantly or collaborating on a specific issue — they’re always working as a team.
“When things start getting tough in school or even when we were down at States — or anywhere really — I can rely on my four teammates to be there for me,” Woodworth said.“As we’re getting ready to go to Globals, no matter how we place in Tennessee we’ll still be as close as a family.”
When asked what they wanted the community to know about their team, Sinclair summed it up well for the group.
“I think it’s important for everyone to know how hard we worked on our scenes, sets, and our play,” she said. “I also think it’s important for everyone to know how hard we have worked to get to this point, and that we really appreciate their support,” Sinclair added.
“We worked really hard to get this far and we had to raise a lot of money to get to Globals,” Clavet added.
