Odyssey of the Mind Teams Place in State Competition

The Westchester Country Day School Middle and Upper School Odyssey of the Mind teams showed a strong performance in the state competition, with one team headed to the world finals in May.

The Upper School team of students Mallory Atkinson, Kate Dyson, Ava Klein, Aliana Schwartz, Cooper Singer, Sophia Singer and Katie Todd finished in first place in every category in which they were scored – Long-Term, Style and Spontaneous -- at the state competition at Western Carolina University on April 2.

The Middle School team of Jack Briggs, Jamie Collins, Wilson Caddy, Naia Daniel and Talia Taylor placed fourth in their problem.

With their first-place finish, the Upper School team will advance to the Odyssey of the Mind World Finals on May 25-28 at Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa. At the world finals, the team will compete in the long-term technical problem. They will present a solution through an eight-minute performance that meets a variety of criteria. The students have prepared their solution by developing a script and creating the set and costumes for their performance.

“Going to the world finals is very exciting for a number of reasons, including the fact that team members meet students from all over the country and even the world,” said Raegan Atkinson, director of college guidance and advisor for the team. “Pin trading is a popular activity among participants, and this year our team is even designing its own set of original pins to take to trade with other OMers.”

Odyssey of the Mind is a creative problem-solving program that teaches students to think differently while creating solutions to long-term, open-ended problems. The worldwide program presents new problems each year for teams to work together on solving. These problems appeal to a range of interests and include building items, creating devices, or giving performances that include specific elements. Solutions to these problems engage students in using ideas from science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics (STEAM). Competitions reward creativity and thinking outside the box.