Destination Imagination is a competitive program for school age children.  This section covers:



How do the Kids Compete?


  • 2-7 kids form a team that compete against other teams at a tournament
  • the teams that compete against one another are teams that
    • are in the same age/school level
      DI defines the following levels - the kid of the highest level dictates the level of the team
      • early learning: pre-K thru 2nd grade (abbreviated RS for Rising Stars)
      • elementary level: 3rd grade thru 5th grade (abbreviated EL)
      • middle level: 6th grade thru 8th grade (abbreviated ML)
      • secondary level: 9th grade thru 12th grade (abbreviated SL)
      • university level: post 12th grade (abbreviated UL)
      • the Rules of the Road cover all details of the level assigned to a team
    • chose the same team challenge 
      For 20+ years, DI has offered 7 team challenges each year that emphasize different interests.  These team challenges are:
      • Technical Challenge: tech or Challenge A
      • Scientific Challenge: sci or Challenge B
      • Fine Arts Challenge: arts or Challenge C
      • Improvisational Challenge: impr or Challenge D
      • Engineering Challenge: eng or Challenge E
      • Service Learning Challenge: serv or Project Outreach (PO)
      • Early Learning Challenge: stars or RS (for Rising Stars)


At a tournament, the teams in the same Team Challenge and Level compete against one another.  We refer to such a group as a Challenge-Level (or challev for short).


Who scores the Teams?


In addition to forming teams, a competition need judges that will score their solutions.  At a DI tournament, teams are judged in 2 distinct areas:


  1. Appraisers (DI judges) score the team's solution to the team challenge they solved
    A  team challenge appraiser team typically consists of 6-10 adults who understand the team challenge.
    1. each team is scored on 10-15 score-items outlined in the challenge
      Because of the number of score-items, an appraiser typically scores a subset of the items.
    2. an appraiser team is responsible for scoring all the teams in one or more challevs for their challenge
      It is important that each team in a challev is scored by same set of appraisers.  Score-items may require a subjective opinion.  We want the appraisers giving scores to do so uniformly across all teams in the challev.
  2. Appraisers also score their solution to an instant challenge the team sees for the first time at the tournament.
    An instant challenge appraiser team typically consists of 3-4 appraisers.  The team first sees the instant challenge when it is read to them to solve.  All the teams in a team's challev solve the same instant challenge.  Instant challenges are typically geared toward a particular level.  An appraiser team is likely to be assigned to judge several challevs at a particular level such as elementary.
    1. the appraisers first see the challenge the morning of the tournament
    2. each team is scored on 4-8 score-items that are listed in the instant challenge
      Each appraiser will score all of the score-items.
    3. an appraiser team is responsible for scoring all the teams in one or more challevs
      It is important that each team in a challev is scored by same set of appraisers. Score-items may require a subjective opinion.  We want the appraisers giving scores to do so uniformly across all teams in the challev.


Who determines the Results?


A DI tournament has a Score Room charged will collecting all the scores from the appraiser teams.  They apply the rules outlined in the Rules of the Road to determine the rank place finish of each team in a challev.  As an example, each part of a team's solutions make up a percentage of their score.  In general:


  • instant challenge is 25%
  • team choice is 15%
  • main part of team solution is 60%