The ORR Junior High School team known as the G.E.E.K.s won first place in the Destination Imagination Tournament on April 2 in Waltham. The team beat out over 10 regions in the state. The team will represent the state of Massachusetts in the Global Tournament, which will take place in Knoxville, TN over the Memorial Day weekend. The Global Tournament will include a team from each of the states and 23 other countries.
The five-member team includes Kyle Rood, Sara Lafrance and Edward Krawczyk from Rochester and Rikard Bodin and Holly Frink of Marion. The G.E.E.K.s acronym was the name chosen by members and stands for great, extraordinary, entertaining kids.
“It’s taken us seven years to get to Globals,” said Kyle Rood. “That’s been our goal and it’s unreal.” Rood is especially excited about the opportunity to stay in a dormitory and visit the campus at the University of Tennessee.
The team won by creating a movie trailer, presented live, that portrayed the adventures of an Icelandic man who went searching for Bigfoot in Nepal. The skit had to include the interaction of characters from at least two countries and had to have a special effect, a music soundtrack, cast, crew and show native culture.
Nothing could be pre-recorded and the trailer had to be completed in under four minutes. The team was allowed one minute to set up for its presentation, which left little time to move props, costumes, scenery, the special effects and ready the music prior to the signal from the timekeeper.
The team was scored with a point system within the areas of storytelling, international cultures, cinematic special effects, music and sounds, theater arts, creativity critical thinking collaboration and communication. The G.E.E.K.s took top honor in all scored areas, qualifying them to represent the state at the next level. The team also won a Renaissance award for exceptional creativity, set design and engineering.
The team special effect was a campfire made of lights, aluminum foil, streamers and a small fan. Another scene included a three-dimensional pop up cave, which earned a high score from judges.
The purpose of the movie trailer was to immediately attract an audience’s attention and make them want to see the full movie. The team met in January to get story ideas and have worked almost every weekend and during February vacation to get the skit as fine-tuned as possible. “The hard work all paid off at the tournament,” said team managers Kerry Bulman and Tina Rood.
”It’s amazing that we could do this in our second year,” said Rikard Bodin, who referred to the van trip down to Tennessee as an exciting “road trip” for the five friends.
“It’s taken us so long to get here and it’s awesome,” said Ed Krawczyk. “This was my first year and I still can’t believe we’re going to Knoxville,” said Holly Frink.
If the past is any indication of what the G.E.E.K.s can do, they just might come home with another trophy.
Destination Imagination is a non-profit that provides educational programs for students to learn and experience creativity, teamwork and problem solving. Each year, over 125,000 students in the U.S. and more than 30 countries participate.
By Joan Hartnett-Barry
