A child-led STEAM program gives local students room to create, collaborate, take risks and bring their biggest ideas to life.
As parents, we spend a lot of time looking for the right opportunities for our kids: something fun, something meaningful and, ideally, something that helps them grow without feeling like one more thing to do.
Destination Imagination of New York brings those pieces together. The global, volunteer-led nonprofit invites teams of students to take on open-ended STEAM challenges and gives the students ownership of the solutions.
Have a kid who loves to build, invent, perform, experiment or ask "what if?"
See how Destination Imagination works and how to start or join a team in New York →
That distinction matters. This isn’t a program where an adult shows children exactly what to make or walks them through a predetermined result.
Teams choose a challenge and move through the creative process together. They research, brainstorm, design, build, write, test, revise and present their own solution. Adults help keep the team moving, but the kids own the ideas and decisions.
A Local Team That Went All the Way
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Michelle Piccolo-Hill, a parent in the Hendrick Hudson School District, had heard so much about Destination Imagination that she and a friend decided to co-manage a team for their daughters and several friends.
“Destination Imagination is a child-led STEAM program where kids are empowered and required to ‘solve’ a chosen challenge,” Michelle shared. “By applying creative thinking, problem solving, flexibility, research and intense teamwork, they managed to make it all the way to the Global Finals their first year!”
She describes the program as a fun, engaging enrichment opportunity for children who are ready to stretch themselves. Her team’s experience shows just how much can happen when kids are trusted with a real challenge.
What Do Destination Imagination Teams Actually Do?
Depending on the challenge they select, students might build a robot, engineer a structure, write and perform a play, design sets and costumes, make a movie, create original artwork or develop a service-learning project connected to a real community need.
The categories include Technical, Scientific, Engineering, Fine Arts, Improvisational and Service Learning challenges, along with an Early Learning option.
And the projects don’t stay neatly inside one subject. An arts-focused challenge might include a technical component, while an engineering solution could also involve storytelling or performance.
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Why Educators See a Difference
The value is not only in the final project. It is in everything students learn while figuring out how to get there, including the moments when an idea fails, teammates disagree or the first solution simply does not work.
“Because DI encourages kids to take on challenging work, they learn to appreciate that struggle leads to unique, thoughtful outcomes,” said Mike Lovering, a Destination Imagination alumnus and sixth-grade teacher at Orchard Park Middle School.
Tracy Taylor, an elementary school principal in the Blind Brook-Rye Union Free School District and a Destination Imagination of New York volunteer, has seen that ownership firsthand.
“As an educator and volunteer with Destination Imagination of NY, I have witnessed firsthand the value of DI and how student-driven learning can look when students truly take ownership,” she said.
That may be the heart of the program: Kids are not simply completing an adult’s vision. They are practicing how to listen, lead, compromise, persist and trust their own thinking.
How Families Can Get Started
New York students in grades K–12, as well as university students, can participate by forming or joining a team. A team generally includes two to seven students and an adult Team Manager. Students do not all need to be in the same grade.
The season begins in the fall. Teams choose a challenge and typically meet for a few hours each week as they develop their solution. New York Regional Tournaments take place in March, followed by the state Affiliate Tournament for qualifying teams and Global Finals in May.
Teams can be organized through a school or district, but they can also grow from an after-school program, homeschool co-op, library, community organization or simply a group of friends and families who want to create together.
For children who love to build, perform, invent, debate, draw, experiment or ask “what if?”, Destination Imagination offers something increasingly rare: a meaningful problem without one correct answer and the freedom to discover what they can do together.
