Odyssey of the Mind
Odyssey of the Mind is an international educational program which main focus is Creativity and Problem Solving and is administered by Creative Competitions, Inc. or (CCI). This involves students from kindergarten through college. Each team has a maximum limit of seven team members. This encourages members to work together as a team and generate solutions to a problem they have not seen before. They will be given predefined long-term problem and will be asked to present their solution to the problem at a competition. The students will learn creative problem-solving methods while having fun in the process through Odyssey of the Mind program. The students will have a opportunity to explore their imagination and hone their creative thinking abilities to show off their skills and surpass new challenges.
Four divisions of Odyssey of the Mind teams:
Division I — Grades K–5 (U.S.): Members must be less than 12 years of age on May 1 of the competition year (Other International).
Division II — Grades 6–8 (U.S.): Members must be less than 15 years of age on May 1 of the competition year (Other International).
Division III — Grades 9–12 (U.S.): the oldest team member who does not qualify for Divisions I or II and is attending regular school but not a college or university or anything similar (Other International).
Division IV — Collegiate for all teams. All team members must have a high school diploma or its equivalent and must be enrolled in at least one course at a two- or four-year at a certain college or university.
The team's division will be determined by the oldest team member.
Five categories of creative problems that the team participants must solve:
Vehicle: this involves building vehicles of different sizes that should perform specific tasks.
Technical: this category involves building an “innovative contraptions”.
Classics: this incorporates knowledge of architecture, art, and literature
Structure: this category will require the designing and building of a structure using only balsa wood and glue, and this should compete to see which structure can hold the most weight
Performance: this last category will require the team to act, sing, and/or dance depending on a given theme
In 1978, Odyssey of the Mind was founded by C. Samuel Micklus and Theodore Gourley. This friendly competition was previously known as "Olympics of the Mind". This very first creative problem-solving competition ever is participated by teams from 28 New Jersey schools. Odyssey of the Mind is now an international program with teams participating from different countries which competes regularly in addition to teams from the United States.
If the teams who advance from their state or national finals are from outside of the US, they will be invited to join the World Finals. It is the pinnacle of the entire year of Odyssey of the Mind.
Just like any other Olympic games, members of Odyssey of the Mind who made it to the World Finals often purchase a series of pins from their state. These pins will be traded throughout the competition. As they barter for one another's state and country pins, the teams are uniting from all over the world. The 1998 World Finals took place in Disney World. Disney picked up on the concept of pin trading and is now popular throughout Disney World and Disneyland.
0 comments