Instant Challenges require teams to engage in quick, creative and critical thinking. At a Tournament, a team will receive an Instant Challenge and the materials with which to solve it. The team members must think on their feet by applying appropriate skills to produce a solution in a period of just five to eight minutes. While Team Challenges build long-term problem solving and teamwork skills, Instant Challenges provide an exciting, impromptu creative experience for competing teams. By practicing Instant Challenges during the course of the season, students can increase their improvisational skills and train their minds to work quickly!

Why Instant Challenges? In a world with growing cultural connections, increased levels and types of communication, and a new need for real-time teamwork and problem solving, the ability to solve problems quickly is becoming increasingly critical.

Destination ImagiNation Instant Challenges are kept confidential until the day of the Tournament. When devising solutions for Instant Challenges, teams may show, among other things:

  • The ability to assess and use available materials in creative ways.
  • A knack for improvisation.
  • A collaboration of efforts.
  • Their engineering skills.
  • A flair for performance.
  • Time-management strategies.
  • Teamwork.

Instant Challenges are Performance-based, Task-based, or a combination of the two. Although each Instant Challenge has different requirements, all Instant Challenges reward teams for their teamwork and the creativity of their solutions.