“It was a giant puzzle, and the pieces had to all match up at the end. Thankfully, we had the team from Destination Imagination come to our facility to help us lay out the initial mock-up.”
The Client Destination Imagination’s “Power Cube Challenge”
The Player Grafix Solutions, Sayreville, New Jersey
Tools & Supplies Seiko ColorPainter 64S, Avery Dennison MPI 2120 Matte Permanent
vinyl, Onyx ProductionHouse RIP
The Job In 2008-09, more than 10,000 students across 50 states and 40 countries participated in Destination Imagination, a process-based program that helps young people build lifelong skills in creative and critical thinking, teamwork, time management, and problem solving. Throughout the academic year, teams participated in team challenges, culminating in the Global Finals, held May 20-23, 2009, in Knoxville, Tennessee. During the closing ceremonies at the finals, teams participated in the “Power Cube Challenge,” a mammoth puzzle consisting of 125 3 x 3 x 3-foot cubes that, when assembled, formed one giant cube measuring 15 x 15 x 15 feet. The puzzle was part of the National Dairy Council’s “Fuel Up” Challenge.
This was the second consecutive year that Grafix Solutions in Sayreville, New Jersey, was responsible for printing and installing the cube graphics for the challenge. So although the learning curve wouldn’t be quite as steep as the previous year, the challenge would come in “keeping the pieces organized and in order,” says George Kern, senior graphic designer with Grafix Solutions. “There were many pieces to this job that needed to be kept together.”
Production Once receiving the image fi les from Destination Imagination, Graphix Solutions used its six-color Seiko ColorPainter 64S with Seiko inks, printing onto Avery Dennison MPI 2120 Matte Permanent vinyl—donated by Avery Dennison—for cube-graphic output. Multiple sides were printed and then manually cut for each side of the cardboard cubes. Grafix Solutions used its Onyx ProductionHouse RIP to do the tiling for the cubes’ rows and columns. Total output: nearly 7000 square feet for the 125 cubes.
To finish, Graphix Solutions did minimal manual trimming on individual cubes, and
used no overlaminates or clear coats. It took two of its installers a week to complete all the cubes, although quicker installation would have been possible, says Kern, had the creative materials not been staggered in their delivery.