March 17, 2004
Contest taxes brain power
560 students compete at Odyssey of the Mind Regional 3 Tournament
By Carol South
Herald contributing writer
From four-foot cardboard penguins to junk recycling machines to a story titled "The Prince and the Watermelon," the sky's the limit on creativity for area Odyssey of the Mind teams.
Saturday, Traverse City East Junior High School vibrated with innovation and out-of-the-box thinking as 560 students on 80 Odyssey of the Mind teams gathered for the Region 3 Tournament.
The teams had contrived and created for months to solve problems in the following categories: Envirover, Strategy Sphere, Fantastic Art, Balancing Act and Featured Creature. Winners of the regional tournament will compete on April 17 in the state tournament, held at Grand Valley State University in Allendale.
This year, teams from Central Grade School Team A, Cherry Knoll Elementary School, Immaculate Conception Elementary School, Traverse City West Junior High, Traverse City West High School and Westwoods Elementary School will compete in the state tournament.
In addition, Traverse City West High School received a coveted - and rare - award. The school's team also received first place in the Fantastic Art, Division III, category.
"We had a Ranatra Fusca for the West Senior High team, they just went above and beyond what is expected," said Tina Allen, the Region 3 director. "They showed a high level of creativity, that award is not given out lightly."
Members of the Interlochen Pathfinder Division I team were participating in their second regional tournament together. The team attended the Odyssey of the Mind World Finals last year and have been meeting together and with their coach since September. While they did not advance to state competition this year, they enjoy sharing time, teamwork and talent.
"I love competing and it is just fun to make our solution," said Jenny Drettmann, a fifth grade student at the school. "I love the long-term problem."
Drettmann said the Odyssey of the Mind training helps foster creativity in other areas of her life, such as school.
"It makes you think a little more about things and makes you be more creative about your answers," she said. "On the team, we mostly all brainstorm together and actually I think working as a team makes things easier than working as an individual."
Eastern Elementary School student Dani Hood has been working with her team since last fall. The team's second year together, they competed in Fantastic Arts, Division I, creating a skit about a schizophrenic griffin who is crazed by gold.
"I like acting and I like working the problems," said Hood, a fifth grade student at the school. "Everything is really fun, basically."
Watching the variety of approaches students take to solving the same problem keeps Peggy McNew of Glen Lake coming back year after year to judge. Serving as a timekeeper on Saturday, McNew has also judged six times at the regional level and three times at the state level.
"I love it, they are so creative," McNew said. "I'm a teacher so I can't do a team after school, but I can do this. This is the way I would teach if I could."
The number of participants and teams in the Odyssey of the Mind Region 3 Tournament was a dramatic drop from previous years. In 2003, 110 teams and nearly 800 students attended the competition. State education budget cuts is the source of this decline, noted Allen.
"Some schools have coordinators or coaches who are paid and when they do budget cuts, that is one of the things they cut," she said. "I think it is our job this summer, to put together some information to show just how economical it is to do this program."
"Everybody's there because they want to compete for the day, but the lessons these kids are getting are so much more far-reaching than the competition itself," she added.