Planet LTT 9779 is light years away, yet has become center orbit in the minds of Black Forest Hills Elementary’s Destination Imagination all girls team. Mentored by Hannah Wussow, a Grandview junior, the group of girls had an astronomical success at the State Tournament, winning first place- securing them a spot in Nationals. 

“Destination Imagination is a K-12 organization, and it’s nonprofit. Basically kids come together and they solve a challenge relating to different fields like STEM fields,” said Wussow. 

The challenge this year was “Worlds Beyond”. The team, Annabell, Hazel, Zoe, and Melina, with the guidance of Wussow, had to implement both creative and technical aspects during development. 

“The girls had to research a well-known planet and then create a skit about a character who thinks they’re alone on the planet- but finds out that they’re actually not,” said Wussow.

The girls, with the team name Tough as Titanium Astropeeps, chose planet LTT 9779 and constructed a technobabble detector using robotics and coding. However, they also had to develop costumes, characters, and scripts to convey their scientific ideas in a creative and unique format. 

“I was the team manager for this team.  I wasn’t able to give input on the challenge solution, but I definitely helped guide them there,” said Wussow. 

Wussow’s Destination Imagination journey started when she was in first grade. She was a part of the Rising Stars program all the way up until her freshman year of high school. 

“She and her teams have gone to [nationals] three times. Since she did not have a team in high school, but she has volunteered at tournaments as an announcer. However, this year chose to be the Team Manager of a team in order to give back to the Destination Imagination community and share her passion for creativity and love for [it],” said Kristine Wussow, a teacher at Black Forest Hills elementary. 

Wussow volunteered more than 50 hours to the team. In that time she became more than just a mentor.

“I have built a relationship with the girls. They all have very different personalities, and it’s really fun to figure out how to connect with each one and give them the help that they need,” Wussow said. 

Wussow helped the girls grow from individuals to a real team. Initially, the team had some struggles revolving around differing ideas. 

“It’s hard for everyone, when they have super great ideas, to come together and accept that maybe your idea is not going to be picked or you have to find compromises,” said Wussow. 

She helps the team determine how to professionally handle these differences. Additionally, she also uses her STEM experience and leadership skills to determine a good plan for each meeting and how to manage time. 

“We just try to have a to-do list for each day and try to get a little bit of each portion of the challenge completed for a day,” said Wussow. 

She also implements brain breaks and specific stations catered to each team member based on their preference that day. Her leadership, as well as the team’s hard work resulted in win after win. 

“On April 5 they competed against the best 18 elementary teams from across the state at Auraria Campus in both a Scientific Challenge and Instant Challenge and won 1st place,”  K. Wussow said. 

They will be moving on to the Global Finals to compete against the best teams in the world in May. 

“When we won, I honestly felt shock and disbelief. I was super, super proud of them, but there were over 18 teams competing, so we didn’t know what their odds were going to be. [Overall though,] it was just a lot of pride when I got to hear their name be called and see them run out,” siad Wussow. 

Wussow stresses that this win does a lot for women looking to go into STEM fields. 

“Women do have a place in science fields and they can accomplish things in STEM,” Wussow said. “A lot of girls think, ‘Oh, maybe I can’t do certain things’,  but programs like Destination Imagination allow them to know that they can be a scientist or an astronaut or other things in the STEM field.”