HOLLIS – A Hollis Brookline High School-based Destination Imagination team placed third in the global finals at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville at the end of May.

More than 8,000 students from 48 states and 30 countries participated. This is the highest finish for any team from Hollis Brookline.

“We have a strong team and have done well before, but this is truly an achievement,” said Anat Eshed, who has been the team manager for 11 years. “My daughter is graduating, so for her to have this achievement at the end of an 11-year DI career is pretty neat.”

Destination Imagination is a challenge-based competition based on creative problem solving, science, technology, the arts, engineering and teamwork. Teams are given a technical challenge and have to collaborate on how to accomplish the goal. Costumes and presentation are also part of the project.

Team members tend to play up their strengths, whether mechanical aptitude or artistic flair, but the competition is very much a group effort.

This year’s challenge, “Dig In,” involved designing and building equipment that could detect hidden objects, remove them from their hiding places and transport them across the finish line in less than eight minutes. The team chose an ocean theme, and used a robot shrimp to find and retrieve stolen pearls that had been placed inside clamshells.

It took about six months for the Clam Hunters to come up with the solution, create and test all of the components, write a script and pull the production together.

The team held fundraisers to finance its travels and registration fees, often collecting money at the Hollis transfer station or the Stateline Store in Brookline.

Prior to qualifying for the global finals, the team competed in the regionals in Keene and the state competition in Nashua, both held in March.

Eshed’s daughter Noam is a senior at Hollis Brookline High School, as is Mandy Graves, the other remaining original team member. This was the team’s sixth time qualifying for the globals and the fifth trip for the pair, who couldn’t attend last year because of Advanced Placement tests.

“I’ve been doing DI since second grade, so I was really excited about it,” Noam Eshed said about the team’s accomplishments.

She said one of her favorite things about the competition is watching how other teams solve the same challenge.

Eshed will attend Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in the fall, and plans to study physics or engineering.

“This was unbelievable, a great way to end,” Graves said about her DI career. “I like the mechanical pieces, but I also like acting out the script. I like being dramatic onstage: That is where I shine. It’s all very interesting.

“The best part is as seniors, we got to have a graduation ceremony while we were there. We made duct tape hats and gowns.”

Noam Eshed’s younger brother Amit, a freshman at HBHS, has been involved with DI since first grade, but this year marked the first time the siblings were on the same team. While both thought it was cool to work together, Amit admitted to the difficulties posed by not being able to escape from one another if they disagreed on an issue.

A big part of DI is problem-solving and thinking on your feet. Amit Eshed, who specializes in the technological designs, has had plenty of valuable experience in improvising.

“A week before regionals, the arm I had designed for the robot wouldn’t scoop and I had to redesign it,” he said. “Yeah, it was pressure, but we knew what we needed to change and why and fixed it.”

Amit will continue on the team after Noam graduates. Based on his interests and aptitudes, he has already decided to pursue a career in biomedical engineering.

Simren Bhogal, also a freshman at HBHS, just joined DI two years ago but has already been to the global finals twice.

“It is so impressive to see how others teams thought processes worked,” she said. “They have prop rooms where everything is displayed. You think you had creativity and then you see someone else’s containers.”

The team’s fifth member is Kyle Swanson, of Hollis, a freshman at Bishop Guertin High School, who enjoys working on the technological components, making props and acting in the skits.

“Sometimes we work hard on the equipment and it doesn’t work,” he said. “A couple of years ago, we worked for weeks on the technology and got to a competition, and it all fell apart. But if you keep trying, you will be successful.”

Swanson said his favorite part of the global fina;s was running across the stage when it was announced that the team had placed third. The Clam Hunters were awarded a team trophy and individual medals.

In addition, Noam Eshed won a Destination Imagination Support Committee (DISC) scholarship of $1,500. To apply for the scholarship, she chose the option to create a tool that would help teams solve a common problem. Her pair of dice have suggestions for how to brainstorm, communicate or hand out responsibilities.

Out of hundreds of seniors who applied, she was among the nine who were awarded a DISC scholarship.

Hollis Brookline was also represented at the global finals by an elementary school team that solved the “Laugh Art Loud” theatrical-based challenge and a middle school team that solved the “Going to Extremes” scientific-based challenge.

For more information about Destination Imagination, visit www.idodi.org or www.nh-di.org.