The John S. Bradfield Elementary School of the Highland Park I.S.D. is a valued member of our church neighborhood. One of the young members of our church, Austin Anderton (the daughter of Bill and Nancy Anderton), is a Bradfield student and a member of Bradfield's 2008 Destination ImagiNation team for the fourth grade. The team participated in the 2008 Destination Imagination Regional Tournament in March, 2008.

Click on the image to see the video.

Every year, almost 15,000 Texas children form creative problem-solving teams to compete in Destination Imagination Tournaments throughout the state. Many teams began working in September to prepare for the regional-level tournaments during the months of February and March. There are sixteen Texas Destination ImagiNation regions in Texas. The winning teams from each region will advance to the State Tournament, April 4 -5, 2008 in Round Rock. The first and second place winners from the State Tournament will advance to the Global Tournament to be held at the University of Tennessee.

The Dallas-area tournament was conducted Saturday, March 8, 2008 at the University of Texas at Dallas (UTD).

Destination ImagiNation's web site (http://www.destinationimagination.org/ and http://www.texasdi.org/) describes the competition as:

"Destination ImagiNation (DI) is a competition in which students form teams of no more than seven students. They then choose from among the five challenges developed each year to encourage students to think about the challenge topic, to learn how to research, and to apply what they have learned.

Team members may take specific roles to solve the challenge. These roles include: writer, researcher, concept developer, builder, stage manger, performer, and technician (e.g. soldering, welding, metal and wood working). All of the intelligences mentioned by researcher Howard Gardner in his multiple intelligence theory are utilized in DI. Gardner believes we all learn differently because we're all born with varying degrees of at least eight different human intelligences: language, bodily/kinesthetic ability, logic, music, spatial ability, interpersonal skills, intrapersonal skills, and naturalist."

The name of the team, "Switcharoo," is derived from the challenge the team selected to perform in the Regional Tournament: "SWITCH." The SWITCH challenge which has a focus of:

• Architectural Design
• Structural Engineering
• Construction
• Research
• Innovation and Design Process
• Mathematics
• Theater Arts
• Teamwork

This challenge is described as:

"Did you ever have to make up your mind? Choose one thing and leave the other behind? Not this time! You don’t have to make up your mind – you get to try something two different ways! You will test your Structure’s strength one way and then…..SWITCH! You test your Structure another way. You will also put some other SWITCHES to show how one item can do different jobs! So get ready – SWITCHING has never been so much fun!"

The Switcharoos Do Well! 

Bradfeld's Switcharoos placed second in their challenge for their age group (Elementary Level - Kindergarten through 5th grade) and also received a special DaVinci award for creativity. The 22-gram structure (made of nothing more than balsa wood and glue) that the Switcharoos built for the Team Challenge supported a combined weight of 350 pounds!

We at Central are proud to be hosting the video documentary of the tournament for the enjoyment of the parents, family, classmates and friends of the Switcharoos.

Click here to see the video.