Emily Flora | SWoCo

Bryce Pappas, Matthew Stiles, Ryan Smith, Andrew Farley, Cassidy Clipp, Jayden Olsen, and Haley Clipp.

They call themselves the Splattered Right Angles. Made up of seven sixth-graders at Cave Spring Middle School, they have endless amount of energy and are some of Cave Spring's most talented students. One thing they share in common -- they all have fantastic imaginations.

These sixth-graders are on the Destination Imagination team, which competes against other schools while using their imagination. The seven members are Cassidy Clipp, Haley Clipp, Andrew Farley, Jayden Olsen, Bryce Pappas, Ryan Smith, and Matthew Stiles. Jackie Farley, Denise Pappas, and Christine Clipp serve as their "supervisors."

The regional tournament was held at Glenvar on March 7 and although the Cave Spring Middle School team was the only one to compete at the regional level they still scored high enough with the judges to move on to the state tournament. The state tournament was held in April in Crozet and the Splattered Right Angles placed second, missing first place by only a few points -- which means that they will advance to the Global Tournament May 20 through 24.

During the global competition the team will compete not only against students around the country, but students around the world at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.

Coach Farley said that thousands of people from all around the world will be there.

"DI is a program that really gets your imagination juices flowing," Andrew said. "We come up with a skit and follow the guidelines. We had to build a structure that would hold weight."

"DI is when you use your imagination and find some way to put a structure together," Cassidy said.

Besides the competitiveness, the sportsmanship and all the rules that the team has to follow, they have fun doing it and have made long lasting friendship with one another.

"DI is mostly fun, challenging, and you get to spend time with your friends. If you like building stuff it's good for that too," Bryce said.

"You use your imagination a lot and get to make friends. There are a lot of instant challenges," Haley said.

Although the team has coaches, they are only there as supervisors and only help keep the group focused. The presentations, ideas, and imagination all come from the kids themselves.

"The kids mostly have to do everything in the competition," Jayden said. We try to win over the judges with our skit."

The students designed and made their own sets and created their own costumes. They made up three delightful and clever commercials for "Miss Webster's Art Supply Kit," "Prison Chili," and "Lazy Drink." They created a surprise ending and had a grande finale that summarized the whole skit. The team had to make sure every detail of the challenge was met.

Coach Farley wanted to send her thanks for everyone who has made it possible for the Splattered Right Angles to go to the global competition. Her many thanks go to Cave Spring Middle School, the PTA, Dr. Lorraine Lange, Principal Steven Boyer, the Gifted Department and the Educational Foundation.