For the first time in Putnam Valley history, two of the school district’s teams will advance to the Destination ImagiNation Global Finals in Knoxville Tennessee following qualifying wins at the State Finals in Endicott, New York April 17. One team of fourth graders from Putnam Valley Elementary School and one team of fifth and sixth graders from Putnam Valley Middle School both finished second in their categories, earning them a spot at the Global competition, which draws tens of thousands of people from around the country and the world.

Global Finals is the culminating event of every Desintation ImagiNation season. Last year 16,000 people from across all states and more than 38 countries descended on the University of Tennessee to showcase their solutions to Destination ImagiNation Challenges. This year the Putnam Valley teams will be among more than 1,000 teams from around the world that are expected in Knoxville for the four-day event.

Destination ImagiNation is an international, creative problem-solving competition in which students at the elementary, middle and high school levels choose a challenge and then work as a team to solve and then present at tournaments at the Regional, State and Global levels.

“We are incredibly proud that two of our Putnam Valley teams are making history by being the first to advance to Destination ImagiNation Global Finals,” said Putnam Valley Superintendent of Schools Dr. Marc Space. “These young people have worked hard as teams on a very complicated challenge, and will now represent Putnam Valley and the State of New York as they stand with students from around the world.”

Both teams that are advancing chose the DIrect DIposit Challenge, which focuses on engineering, cost/benefit analysis, innovation and design, technical design and construction, experimentation, mathematics, communication, theater arts and teamwork.

The Putnam Valley Elementary School team that is advancing - the Trebuchet Masters - consists of Eddie Sanchez-Barrera, Dylan Delaney, AJ Egel, David Kahn and Conor VanRiper. The Putnam Valley Middle School Team that is advancing - the DI-Hard Thieves (formerly the Legos) - includes Kyle Carroll, Maggie Boltin, Jake Kahn, Rebeka Kashkin, Alec McDonald, Kaitlin Millicker, and Ryan Usai.

“These students have put in hours of work, perfecting their solutions, questioning their own work and doing it all again," said Barbara Parmly, who is a co-team leader of both advancing teams as well as the town's District Coordinator. “It’s wonderful that they will now get to go to Global Finals and be among students from around the world as they showcase their solutions.”

In DIrect DIposit, the teams had to present a team-created story about making a decision; design and build a piece of equipment that delivered supply objects over a barrier (a six-foot wall) to targets, and consider risk versus reward to increase their object score through strategic delivery to job site targets.

“Throughout the Destination ImagiNation process, these kids learn incredibly valuable life-skills – from creativity and problem-solving to the basics of engineering and design. Now they will be able to expand their horizons even more as they meet and compete with thousands of other students from around the world at Global Finals. As a co-team leader and as a parent, I couldn’t be more proud," said Amanita Duga-Carroll, co-team leader of The DI-Hard Thieves.