What is Instant Challenge?
Instant Challenge is the process to measure students’ abilities in teamwork, creativity, innovation, and problem solving at every competition run by Destination Imagination. They consist of single-page prompts enlisting teams to complete a singular task in a creative way. Teams have 4-8 minutes to show their skills to a room of 3-5 appraisers, who will then award points based on the challenge requirements. The same challenge is administered to teams who choose the same long-term Central Challenge and are the same age level. To keep the competition fair, Instant Challenges are kept confidential throughout the competitive season, as to not give a team an unfair advantage.
Purpose of Instant Challenge
Instant Challenges complement the Central Challenges and encourage quick iteration and solutions. The Instant Challenge portion of each competition make up 25% of the team’s total score, with the long-term challenge accounting for 75%. IC makes a large impact on the competition standings, emphasizing the importance of thinking on your feet.
My Role
Instant Challenges are written by a team of writers chosen by Destination Imagination. Challenge Writers are often heavily involved as volunteers within the program and have experience appraising Instant Challenge at Global Finals for at least one year. As a writer, I draft twelve challenges per year and submit them to be reviewed and revised by other writers.
Testing
Before deploying the challenges to the competitions, they go through extensive testing and prototyping. As issues arise, possible solutions are suggested by the testers and implemented where appropriate. During testing, challenges are examined through multiple different lenses to assess and remove potential barriers that would prevent teams from being able to solve the challenge.
Outcomes
After testing, challenges and notes are reworked by Destination Imagination before being released to the Regional and Affiliate Challenge Masters. RCMs and ACMs coordinate which challenges are given to each team challenge and level, and are responsible for gathering materials. As stated above, the challenges are then used to measure team’s abilities in creativity, teamwork, and innovation.
Challenge Writing Sample
To further illustrate the process and goals, I have included a sample challenge. This challenge was written by myself and follows the general guidelines set forth for challenge writing. I followed the same testing process to develop my challenge. This challenge, however, has not been vetted or published by Destination Imagination, Inc.
Instant Challenge Appraisers at Global Finals 2019 (Kansas City, MO)