BALTIMORE — A team of bright young minds from Francis Scott Key Elementary/Middle School is gearing up to show off their creation and compete with other schools from across the U.S. at Destination Imagination.
"It's a creative thinking competition. So the kids form teams of up to 7 kids where they get a new problem every year that they have to build. So, in our case, it's a technical engineering challenge where they have to build one robot to build up a tower of items and then a separate robot to knock down that tower of items and put on a play all around it while it's going on," says Rob Kearns.
And the students decided to have a bit of fun with the play, telling a story of a hermit crab on the beach in search of a shiny new shell for a disco party.
"We wanted to do like a beach theme, so we thought of some characters that might live on the beach and so we thought of seagulls, hermit crabs, french fries because some people drop their food on the beach," says Coraline Robinson.
Back in March, the students won the state level of the competition.
"They didn't call our names for 2nd and 3rd where we thought we were going to be and then we're like, 'We're not first? It's been a fun year.' And then here we are."
And now, they are working to take things to the next level.
Coraline Robinson says her favorite part is being hands-on with the projects.
"I like how you can use your creativity to solve problems and also how you can come up with these like really, really cool things and I think it's really, really fun," she says.
And Henry Kearns says being a part of Destination Imagination has brought him out of his shell.
"I met a lot of new people. I learned a lot of new things about creating and imagination and play-writing. I had stage fright and then I joined this," says Kearns.
The students are set to go to Kansas City on May 21 and have been getting support from the community to get them there. So far, people havedonatedover $14,000 to help with travel costs.
Team coach Rob Kearns says he is grateful for the support.
"But then, this is something we want to do, you know, for years to come. And so anything that we don't use for Globals, we hope to sort of use for next year's team and the year after that," Rob Kearns said.
Rob also says he hopes other schools create their own Destination Imagination teams since it has been a huge part of his life and the students he coaches.
