Odyssey of the Mind

This past weekend, I took five students down to Hohenfels to compete in the district Odyssey of the Mind competition. We started working on solving our problem at the beginning of January. Most schools start at the beginning of the school year, so we were pushing to be ready. We were working up until the last day before the competition to get everything done. It was late Friday afternoon before our car was completely built, which was the most important part of our problem.

Our problem was to build a self-propelled car that would travel to four different environments. The car had to change in appearance each environment and at one point in time, it needed to be a “chain” of vehicles.

We presented our solution as an eight minute skit. The students had to write the skit, come up with costumes, the background, and props to make it realistic. They also had to make the car and use it in the skit. We had a great skit and background, but our car….. well, it disassembled the first time it was put on the ramp. Could be the reason that it was made out of food. The wheels were oreos, which broke in half right away. By the end of the skit, the car was a pile of food. Nonetheless, the kids kept going and didn’t let it bother them. The kids also competed in a spontaneous problem. Their problem was verbal, but I don’t know what it was. They aren’t allowed to tell me until after the World Competition in case the same problem is used again. An example of a verbal problem would be “Name different types of birds”. A normal answer would be robin, blue jay, cardinal, etc. Creative responses would be Larry Byrd, Thunderbird, Big Bird, etc. They came out of the room so excited. They felt really good about how they did, which gave us hope for a first place finish! Unfortunately though, we ended up in second place. There were a few categories where we placed first, but they take an average of all the scores.

All in all, we had a great day.