Destination Imagination: machinery that has to work first time
Building stage machinery for a scored theatrical performance, where a mechanism that fails takes the whole performance down with it, in front of judges, with no second take.
What it actually is
Destination Imagination is a creative problem-solving competition, and the final deliverable is partly a theatrical performance. That gives the engineering an unusual constraint: everything has to look seamless, and it has to work perfectly, live, once, in front of judges, with no visible apparatus.
I did all of the electrical work and led the technical side of the team for both years we competed. In practice that meant designing and building the machinery the performance depended on, then operating it during the show, either remotely or by troubleshooting in real time from behind the backdrop we had built.
Why it matters to me
This is where the electronics started. Arduinos, basic coding, circuitry, and the habit of combining electrical systems with mechanical ones and expecting the combination to behave. Everything on the rest of this site descends from it.
I also learned there that getting a mechanism to work on the bench and getting it to work on cue are different problems.
Result
We won the Turkish national tournament both years and were invited to the Global Finals both times. We could not attend either. Some of our team members could not obtain visas in time, and going without them was not something we were willing to do.
In March 2025 the same team went back to the Turkish tournament as volunteers, running practice sessions for instant challenges so that competing teams could rehearse the format before being scored on it.
Tools
Arduino · Circuit design · Mechanism design