What makes a good Side Trip?

A Team Manager recently asked me how she could assist her team in determining its Side Trips. This is a question that occurs every year, so I will try to address it here.

Side Trips are essentially subjective scoring elements that show off a team’s collective strengths and skills, but are not already being scored elsewhere in the Challenge. Unlike the rest of the Challenge that spells out exactly what elements are required to achieve a score, Side Trip content is determined by the team. The team, in other words, tells the Appraisers what to look for when scoring their Side Trips. They do this by describing in as much detail as possible what their Side Trip is about in the Tournament Data Form.

Except for the improvisational Challenge (Challenge D each year), every Challenge requires two Side Trips, worth up to 30 points each. Each Side Trip is evaluated as follows:

• Up to 15 points for Creativity and Originality
• Up to 15 points for Quality, Workmanship, and/or Effort that is evident

What do Creativity and Originality actually mean? The answer, to be sure, is subjective, and so is the Appraisal Team’s score, but you can help your team understand the intent of this question by asking such open-ended questions as:

• What part of your solution do you think is unique, or stands out as especially different? Is this already being scored? Anything else?
• Of what is your team especially proud? Is this already being scored? Anything else?

The phrase “Quality, Workmanship, and/or Effort that is evident” refers to the concept that Side Trips should reflect something that the team learns and develops over a period of time. To help the team understand this, you can ask:

• What new skills or knowledge did you gain or develop through this Challenge?
• What did you create or design that shows off these skills or this knowledge?
• What took a long time to design or develop?
• Is this already being scored?
• Anything else?

Side Trips can be ANYTHING that the team decides it wants to be scored that is not already required as part of the Challenge, or which can be judged as a standalone element if it is part of a scored element. As an example, the Rules of the Road describes a “vehicle” that could be a required element of a Challenge. The team decides to embellish the vehicle with artwork. Because the artwork is a unique aspect of the vehicle that is not already being scored, it may be considered a standalone element that can be scored as a Side Trip.

It is important to note that Appraisers can only score a team’s Side Trip on the basis of what the team writes on the Tournament Data Form to describe it. This means that students should write a detailed description of their Side Trips, not one- or two-word answers. A description that says, “We learned how to sew in a zipper, and made a magician’s costume that can be removed in seconds by unzipping it,” for example, is much better than a two-word description that simply says, “Magician’s costume.”

This description MUST be in the team’s own words. A Team Manager can write the team’s EXACT words for a younger team. It may take the team a few drafts to generate a detailed description of the Side Trips, so have several copies of the Tournament Data Form on hand to get through the revisions.

If your team is still stumped about how to determine its Side Trips, have the students complete a Side Trip Specialties Inventory. This form, which can be downloaded from the Resource Area of IDODI, was designed specifically to help teams learn about their collective strengths and skills. Use the results of the inventory to launch a discussion about Side Trips, keeping in mind that all ideas must come from the students. Finally, ask your team to analyze its Side Trips after each Tournament to decide how they would like to develop the Side Trips further or modify them. Does the team want to use a different Side Trip at the next Tournament? Asking the team to perform a self-analysis is an important part of the Destination ImagiNation process.