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Mind Games
Hundreds of Florida students gather for a fun-filled weekend of teamwork at the state Odyssey of the Mind competition.
By SAM FRENCH
© St. Petersburg Times
published April 22, 2002
ORLANDO -- Some weird visitors recently occupied the University of Central Florida. There was a Frankenstein, a woolly mammoth, several mad scientists, an overgrown fiddler crab, an evil alien, some big snails and slugs, a trio of witches and a giant raccoon by the name of OMER.
They came to campus complete with spunk and excitement on a recent April weekend, riding a spaceship, a submarine, even a giant hamster wheel. They were all entered in the state finals of Odyssey of the Mind, a competition that tests the brains, creativity and teamwork of students from around Florida.
Our team from Perkins Elementary in St. Petersburg, and more than 240 other teams of kids from kindergarten to college age, worked for months to prepare for this competition. To qualify for the state meet, teams had to win the top places in regional competitions earlier in the year.
Choosing from five problems, some teams built vehicles, and other teams created skits based on classic novels. Teams had to figure out scripts for their presentations and make costumes and backdrops, all without any assistance from adults. Each team had a maximum of eight minutes to present its skit in front of judges.
Our team chose "The Chameleon" problem, requiring students to create a self-propelled vehicle and show it traveling through three environments (scenes), blending in, like a chameleon. Our vehicle was a bike and wagon that converted into a horse and a woolly mammoth. We rode it through modern times, medieval times and Neanderthal times.
Another team from the Gulf Coast Region, one of 13 regions in Florida that include 48 participating school districts, was the chameleon team from Cotee River Elementary in New Port Richey. Their skit was about a time machine that "sinks" back in time. The vehicle was called the sink cycle. The skit started out with a mean teacher forcing two misbehaving students to do a project. She pointed out the sink cycle to them, and they asked her what it did.
"You'll soon find out," the teacher cackled.
It was a very cool skit. The sink cycle took several girls on the team to whatever time period they were thinking about. First they thought about caveman times, and went to a cave settlement. Then they thought about a football game and "sank" to the first Super Bowl, in 1967, between the Green Bay Packers and the Kansas City Chiefs. Finally, they went to the home of the Wright Brothers because one of the girls was playing Orville in a school play.
All day long, the atmosphere was charged with excitement. Kids jumped up and down, hugging each other, putting on their costumes and shuttling their scenery and props to the right classrooms. Some teams gathered outside the performance areas, rehearsing their skits. In between, they emptied their pockets to buy Odyssey of the Mind pins, hats, shirts and other souvenirs.
In addition to the long-term problem that teams prepared in advance, there was another part to the competition. Known as spontaneous, the problem is given to each team to solve on the spot, with no preparation. It could be "hands-on," where you might be asked to build something out of toothpicks and marshmallows; "verbal hands-on," where you might build the structure and say something about it; or "verbal," where you might have to write a question for a word they give you.
The Cotee River chameleon team members, still wearing their costumes in the hall outside the gym, was perked up after they finished their skit, feeling confident about their performance.
Fourth-grader Lindsay VanEtten, 9, thought they did well "because we practiced a lot and we had a good coach," Rita Vanderhoof. Lindsay said she got a kick out of OM. "Definitely," she said, "because we got to build props and practice a lot. And we did the skit."
"I think we did well because we worked as a team," said Jamie McCullough, who is 10 and in the fifth grade.
"Building props and competing" was the most fun part of OM, said fourth-grader Kelsey Jameson, 10. "Practicing" was the best part, said Lindsay, and Jamie voted for "building the props."
All the teams had to wait until 7 p.m. to find out how the results. Everyone gathered in the arena for the awards ceremony, biding time until it began by batting beach balls around the crowd, stomping their feet and cheering. Finally, one by one, the results were announced. The top five winning teams for each age division in each problem were invited onstage to receive ribbons, medals and trophies. They also got a chance to meet Dr. Sam Micklus, a New Jersey professor who challenged his college students with Odyssey-type exercises and inspired the first Odyssey competition in 1978. The program now has participants worldwide; the top two winners for each category get to go to the world competition in Colorado next month. Teams from Buckhorn Elementary School, Palm Harbor Middle School and Land O' Lakes High School qualified for the world meet.
Our team received 12th place out of 19 chameleon teams in our age division in the state competition. Cotee River placed fifth. Many congratulations to Cotee River, my teammates at Perkins, all the teams going to world and all the other Tampa Bay area teams that participated in the state tournament:
Richey Elementary, Shorecrest Preparatory, J.W. Mitchell High, Lake Myrtle Elementary, Bishop Larkin Catholic High School, Denham Oaks Elementary, Gulf Middle, Palm Harbor University High, Sand Pine Elementary, Deer Park Elementary, Pine View Middle, Seven Springs Middle, Genesis Preparatory, Burns Middle, Carrollwood Elementary, Lewis Elementary, Young Middle Magnet, Bartow High, Orange Grove Middle, Hardee Junior High, Sligh Middle, St. Stephen Catholic and Tampa Palms Elementary.
- Sam French, 10, is in the fourth grade at Perkins Elementary School in St. Petersburg.
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