2004 ValeDIctorian Looks Back on DI Experience
In 2004, I had the honor of being “appointed” to one of the two positions for ValeDIctorian at Global Competition. I was involved in DI for over nine years and was carrying that experience into my college career. While anticipating being an appraiser for InDIana competitions, I also created a team of fellow students from various universities in order to compete in DI eXtreme.
So what did I do with my high school education and my years of experience in Creative Problem Solving competition? I enrolled in 2004 at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, to study Engineering. I participated in the DI technical problems for six years and learned more than my share of information. From crayons to industrial robotic wheels, I couldn’t imagine through the years that I was actually doing engineering. In my Engineering 106 class, we were given problems to solve and things to build to solve certain tasks. Little could I have known that DI prepared me for the one job I had dreamed of doing ever since I could remember. In class, we were given one problem to create a vehicle that moved using the air-force of a balloon. I couldn’t believe that my class team had gotten that problem! We had done that exact same thing in DI when were were asked to create vehicles that moved on the sheer force of leaf blowers.I’ve been doing engineering since I was nine years old and never even realized it. A major part of engineering is the process by which a team of individuals is made to solve a problem by designing possible solutions and bringing the best possible solution to light. A good example would be the famous Apollo missions, in which engineers were asked to send a person into space and did so. Destination ImagiNation has prepared me beyond what I ever could have realized by teaching me how to think – or rather how not to think.
I have been thinking “outside the box” for over nine years and have become an asset to my school engineering teams as well as to my friends both at home and at school. My experience gives me the upper hand when dealing with engineering problems, both in class and in real life. I use the skills and bits of knowledge every day in order to bring me closer to my ultimate goal: NASA.
The amount of acquired knowledge that has been compiled within my mind over the past nine years, thanks to the challenges of creative problem solving, has ultimately brought me to the realization that I already know how to do reach my goal. Thanks to DI, I already have the greatest skill that I need to accomplish the goals in my life: the ability to solve a problem creatively and effectively. Just because I’m going to school to be an engineer doesn’t mean that I don’t already qualify. After all, I AM an engineer -- now I just need the papers to prove it.
Stephanie Simerly
Freshman Engineering, Purdue University
