Two Putnam Valley teams will advance to the Destination Imagination state finals in Endicott, New York in April after finishing in the top tier of the regional competition held Saturday, March 6 in Yorktown Middle School. One team of fourth graders from Putnam Valley Elementary School and one team of fifth and sixth graders from Putnam Valley Middle School both finished second in their categories, earning them a spot in the Finals. Three other teams – one at the elementary school comprised of first and second graders, one at the middle school and one at the high school-brought home medals from the competition in Yorktown.
 
Destination Imagination is an international, creative problem-solving competition in which students at the elementary, middle and high school levels choose a challenge and then work as a team to solve and then present at the Regional Tournament.
 
Both teams that are advancing chose the “DIrect DIposit Challenge”, which focuses on engineering, cost/benefit analysis, innovation and design, technical design and construction, experimentation, mathematics, communication, theater arts and teamwork. 
 
"We are extremely proud of our Putnam Valley students who work so hard throughout the year on their Destination Imagination challenges, and are very excited that two of our teams will now go on to represent our town in the state finals," said Putnam Valley Superintendent of Schools Dr. Marc Space. "These students are charged with solving problems as teams, using their creativity -- as well as a healthy dose of math, engineering and design. The lessons they learn in so doing will be with them a lifetime."
 
The Putnam Valley Elementary School team that is advancing - the Trebuchet Masters - consists of Eddie Sanchez-Barrera, Dylan Delaney, AJ Egel, David Kahn and Conor VanRiper. The Putnam Valley Middle School Team that is advancing - the Legos - includes Kyle Carroll, Maggie Boltin, Jake Kahn, Rebeka Kashkin, Alec McDonald, Kaitlin Millicker, and Ryan Usai.
 
In “DIrect DIposit”, the teams had to present a team-created story about making a decision; design and build a piece of equipment that delivered supply objects over a barrier (a six-foot wall) to targets, and consider risk versus reward to increase their object score through strategic delivery to job site targets. 
 
"These students met every week - more as the tournament drew closer - coming up with complicated target identification and delivery systems on their own. One of the critical factors in Destination Imagination is that the students must arrive at every aspect of the solution by themselves - they can't ask me for ideas, they can't ask their brothers, they can't ask their friends. That's really what makes DI unique," said Barbara Parmly, who is a co-team leader of both advancing teams as well as the town's District Coordinator.
 
Three teams, one each from the elementary, middle and high school levels, took home third place medals. They include:
The Blue Dragons, which took third place in the Weighty News category. The team is comprised of Charlie Broas, Cameron Carroll, Kyle Ferraro, Sam France, Sam Kahn and Keith Weed. The team created a newscast that touched on an Aztec village, New York City architecture, simple machine design and a robot. The team is co-lead by Liz Broas and Dorothy France.
 
The town’s other Middle School team named “!”, which competed in the “You’re Gonna Flip!” challenge. In this challenge, team members had to tell an original story of a character who experiences a flip to a new point of view. They were required to have at least one puppet as a character and a piece of live, visual art. Team members include: Carly Bartelini, Sofia France, Kayleigh Hartnett, Holly Jones, Shannon Rogers, Michael Roman and Robyn Torregrosa.

A High School team called “Wait…What Box?” managed by Pat Vandevelde which also took third place in “You’re Gonna Flip.”

"We're thrilled that our teams did so well. Whether they come home with a medal, advance to the Finals or simply see the challenge through to the end, we know they all come away with a greater understanding of the specific skills involved - whether they be design, engineering or communication - but more importantly they learn to work together, be creative and come up with ideas they can truly call their own," said Amanita Duga-Carroll, co-team leader of The Legos.