Many hours of hard work paid off as the STEM Institute ‘s Odyssey of the Mind (OM) team earned an invitation to the World Finals at Michigan State University. The STEM Institute OM team members (L-R) Ruby Riegert, Alyssa Janke, Sophie Schmidt, Jared Ott, Mason McGrath, Miles Dennis, and Nathan Ott are shown here after their performance at State on March 18, 2017, where they took first place in Division 2 and won the Ranatra Fusca Creativity Award.
The OM team's problem, “It’s Time, Omer,” was to create and present an original performance about time travelers searching for the inspiration behind great works of art. The travelers go back in time — twice into the past and once into the future. The team is then charged with explaining how Omer inspires two classical artists as well as a team-created artist from the future. The OM team’s performance was required to include how the three works of art positively impact the world, a visual and audible effect that indicated when time travel was occurring, two re-creations of the classical works of art selected from a list, and a team-created work of art.
In other areas of the competition, the team also had to develop four specialty items to be scored in the style category. The categories that the team chose were the overall construction, the design, the engineering of their team-created set, and the overall artwork in their solution. The final portion of Odyssey of the Mind is called spontaneous. In the spontaneous portion of the competition, students must generate a solution to a never-seen problem through quick thinking and working as a team. The team accumulated a perfect score by winning all three categories.
For their efforts, the team also was awarded the Ranatra Fusca Creativity Award. This award represents the essence of the Odyssey of the Mind program. The Ranatra Fusca Award is bestowed upon the team or individuals who display tremendous creativity at competition. This award serves as an incentive for risk-taking and out-of-the-box thinking for Odyssey participants.
Students prepared for the competition by studying science, math, art, and the language arts to develop an eight-minute solution to the problem. The six-month process included the OM team developing team chemistry, following the design process, and honing their spontaneous creative problem-solving skills. In all, students used their speaking, carpentry, drama, technical, artistic and musical talents to create their solution.
The students will represent Fond du Lac and the state of Wisconsin at Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan on May 23 through May 28. At the World Finals, they will compete against future world leaders from over 33 countries.
The team’s journey to East Lansing will start with further work on their team-created solution and fundraising to make the trip possible. Anyone wishing to learn more about the team’s odyssey or aid in financing the trip may contact Archie Barribeau at [email protected] or contact the STEM Institute at 906-6722. The team will also be holding “ A Night at the Improv with the STEM OM Team” event on Monday, April 3 at 7:00 pm. This event will include a performance of the team’s winning solution.
What is Odyssey of the Mind?
Odyssey of the Mind is a non-profit, international creative problem-solving program for students, Kindergarten through College! The philosophy behind the Odyssey of the Mind program is that creativity can be learned. Problems cover many disciplines such as classics, performance, vehicle, structure, and technical. All solutions are done entirely by team members and outside assistance is not allowed! Students learn lifelong skills such as teamwork, project management and divergent thinking. Students learn to examine problems and identify the real challenge without limiting the possible solutions and their potential success. In Odyssey of the Mind there are no wrong answers!