It was an hour before daybreak and snowing hard. Our Moravia Odyssey of the Mind teams loaded a school bus, armed with pillows, snacks and excitement as we made our way to the state competition in Binghamton. I was too wired to snooze on the bus, so instead put pen to paper to reflect on the moment.
“Going to states” is an honor. My team placed 1st out of six teams at the regional competition in Auburn on March 14. Although we had been working as a team for two years and had been working to resolve this year’s chosen problem “Teach Yer Creature” for six months – which come to think of it – represents over 250 hours of work, the team was surprised and delighted that the judges liked their performance best.
The “Teach Yer Creature” problem challenged the kids to build a mechanical animal creature that learned behaviors and had to be reprimanded for a behavior. Then they had to create a humorous skit to demonstrate the abilities of the creature. My team decided early on to make their creature a bird and then explored birds at the Lab of Ornithology and puppet making at the Open Hand Puppet Theater in Syracuse. Their heads were full of possibilities. As they discussed birds that would be funny they argued the benefits of the tufted titmouse over the hairy woodpecker (what a funny coversation that was!). Eventually the hairy woodpecker won out. Although they all had ideas on how to make him – the process was slow – with lots of paper mache, drying time, trial and error, feathers, glue, duct tape and so on. Start to finish the making of “Hairy” took about a month of production time and he ended up as a 3 foot tall hairy woodpecker with a zit the size of mars – all adding to the humorous performance.
One of the unique things that Odyssey of the Mind has to offer is that the whole solution to the long term problem belongs to the kids – no adult help is allowed. The kids have to sign off on paper attesting to the fact that they have had no outside assistance prior to each competition. I find that this environment creates a safe space for kids to try unique approaches and make and learn from mistakes. Most often the result is not “perfection” by adult standards, but the process that the kids go through to make decisions, and make things work is far more valuable. Early on this year my team came up with a unique way to hold up our background scenes. They made a 5 foot cubic frame out of ½” pvc pipe and connectors. They designed it to be easily taken apart for travel. And, they could turn the cube for a new scene – it was brilliant. Except they spray painted it while it was together, then it didn’t come apart and couldn’t be moved out the door. Getting it apart meant breaking the connectors - and it was back to the drawing board. In the end they cut the cube apart – reused the parts and made a self standing square. It wasn’t as pretty – but it worked, and most importantly - it stayed together and could be maneuvered out the door. Beyond learning that spray paint can be an adhesive – the team also learned that there are many ways to solve a problem.
Over the last two years my team has really grown together. The kids annoy each other sometimes, but they also know each other’s strengths – a necessary skill for working as a team. And, while we didn’t end up placing high at the state competition – they did a marvelous job and had a great experience.
Hats off to enriching opportunities, families that jump into “one more thing” in the schedule, and to school districts, like Moravia, that offer youth the chance to expand their learning beyond the classroom.
