Bedford DI’s “French Fry Fridays” return from Global Finals with a Top Ten Finish

Bedford’s French Fry Friday team in front of the Kansas City Convention Center, site of 2022 Destination Imagination globall competition ~ Courtesy image (c) 2022 all rights reserved

~ Submitted on behalf of Bedford Destination Imagination

Fresh from a state championship with a near-perfect score and a special Renaissance award, a team of five JGMS 7th graders took their winning Destination Imagination challenge solution all the way to Global Finals competition in Kansas City, MO, at the end of May.

The Global Finals event is the culmination of Destination Imagination, a STEAM-focused interdisciplinary art and science extracurricular in which students work in teams of two to seven kids to solve open-ended creative “challenges” that integrate hands-on engineering with visual and performing arts. Successful teams become top innovators, problem solvers, storytellers, risk-takers, collaborators, critical thinkers, and project managers. Over 1,400 of the best teams in the world attended the Global Finals event this year.

French Fry Fridays during the DI Globals. The team brought home a 10th place win in a 60-team competition ~ Courtesy image (c) 2022 all rights reserved

The JGMS team, known as the “French Fry Fridays” represented Bedford by competing in the “Roll With It!” challenge, which involved designing a structure that could both roll down a ramp and bear a great deal of weight, integrated within a performance about a character “becoming a legend.” The students’ solution featured an innovative two-wheel design that held over 350 lbs while weighing in at less than 30 grams and a story about a character struggling to become the first world-renowned female race car driver.

In addition to performing their presentation before fellow DIers and audience members from around the country and around the world, the French Fry Fridays were able to participate in a scavenger hunt featuring key sights and attractions of Kansas City and to meet and interact with hundreds of other teams from such far-flung locales as Texas, Washington, Poland, and Korea.

The team’s hard work paid off with a 10th place finish in a field of over 60 teams in their category and age level, and also with the experience of a lifetime in meeting other students with a passion for teamwork and creativity.

Bedford DI congratulates the French Fry Fridays: Gabe Favalora, Taylor Hallett, Nayan Karthikeyan, Annaliese Randazzo, and Teresa Silver on a job well done!

In addition, we would like to extend deepest thanks to our sponsors at Callahan’s Karate and the Bedford Rotary.

If your student wants to embark on a creativity adventure next season, please email [email protected] to be notified in September when registration opens next year.