PARIS – To the Destination Imagination team from Oxford Hills Middle School what was said was not as important as how it was said.

Just ask Potato Bob.

Potato Bob, played by Ben Reis, could only say one word, “potato.” Bob was cursed by the evil Maldus, played by Molly Pietroski.

Through inflections in pronunciation he had to get his point across not only to his teammates, but also to the judges at a regional Destination Imagination competition held at Edward little High School earlier this month.

He communicated well enough to help his team get a top score in the Cartoon Dimension category.

“I really enjoy this,” Reis said. “It gives me a chance to be somebody else.”

Being one of the top two teams allows Potato Bob and crew to go on the the state competition in Orono on April 3.

The other first place team from OHMS was comprised of sixth-graders Kelsey Doney, Jason Aube, Alex Kumaki and eighth-grader Karen Kumaki.

Part of their challenge was to build a timing device that was able to travel 8 feet and have a visual display working while the timing device was moving.

“There were two other teams that chose that same challenge, but we had the only team that was able to create a timing device that moved on its own,” said Sally Reis, manager for the Potato Bob team.

Betsy Baird was the manager for the other team.

Last year Reis’ team won the regional competition and placed fourth at the state level.

She is hoping they can do better this time. Some of them have been competing together for about three years. Pietroski, Justin Gilmore and Karen Kumaki have competed on various teams for the past six years, according to Reis.

She said there are five levels of competition which include four levels of those school aged from elementary school to college and one adult class. Each team has to choose from one of five challenges.

Reis said her team had to tell a story that met certain technical challenges. One of them was to take a two-dimensional object and change it to a three-dimensional object on stage. They also had to create a sound effect on stage that could be heard 25 feet away.

She said they put a ridged straw inside a hole in a Pringles potato chip can for the sound effect of Dripper Man’s space ship breaking down and crashing.

Dripper Man, played by Dan Millett, was the clumsy superhero from Pluto.

“This gives me something to do between football and baseball,” Millett said. “I like to express my humoristic qualities. I like to make people laugh.

“I like to make a complete fool out of myself,” he laughed.

Teams started twice a week practices on their skits in October and in February increased practices until they were comfortable with their productions.

[email protected]