Instant Challenge Day 2009
•February 21: 1-4pm, Louisville. Kentucky
join together to practice various Instant Challenges
Instant Challenge
Imagine that you are handed an envelope and a small piece of clay... How might you use them to make a structure that is as tall as possible in a two-minute period? Now imagine that you not only have to make the structure, but figure out how it could be used and present it in an entertaining performance… Welcome to the world of Instant Challenge, where DI teams’ creative problem solving abilities, creativity, and teamwork are put to the test solving a time-driven Challenge.
Why Instant Challenges? It sounds trite, but it’s true: In this ever-changing world, the ability to think on your feet and solve problems in a hurry is becoming more and more important.
DI teams learn to solve “instant” challenges in a very short time frame – usually 2 to 5 minutes! This ability is tested at Tournaments when they are given an Instant Challenge and an opportunity to showcase their problem-solving prowess:
Their ability to assess and use available materials in creative ways
Their knack for improvisation
Their flair for performance
Their time-management strategies
Their teamwork
Types of Challenges: The two types below can also be mixed to make a hybrid challenge:
Performance-Based Instant Challenges require teams to create a performance from real or imaginary props. The team must either create these props from given materials or use ones already provided.
The type of presentation for these Instant Challenges will vary. They may include one or more of the following: singing, miming, rhyming, dancing, etc. Team members may enhance their characterizations through the use of Improv, Mime, Body Language, Stage Presence, and/or Voice Alteration.
When brainstorming a solution to a performance-based instant challenge, teams should make sure they consider areas of Story Line Development such as: Situation, Conflict, Resolution, and Beginning-Middle-End. They may also want to think about using other theatrical elements including: Staging, Music, and Special Effects.
Task-Based Instant Challenges are more hands-on type challenges. Team members must work together to communicate, move, change or protect something with the materials they are given by the Appraisers. Sometimes they will be given items which they must manipulate and then give related verbal responses about what they have done with them for score.
In a Task-Based Instant Challenge the team will be given a variety of materials to use to solve the challenge. These materials will fall into three main categories: Extenders/Structural Items; Connectors/Adhesives; and Controllers/Holders/Transporters.
When beginning task-based Instant Challenges it is recommended that you first discuss the three basic types of materials with your team. Then gather a wide variety of items from the lists below and have your team determine what the function(s) of each item might be. Remember keep asking the team in what ways could they use each item. Have them make a chart of the functions of the various items.
