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Competition is approaching for Loyalsock Township School District's (LTSD) Odyssey of the Mind teams as the Regional Tournament is scheduled on Saturday, at Pennsylvania College of Technology. To prepare for the Tournament, Loyalsock teams held an Exhibition on Feb. 27. Those teams who place high enough in the Regional Tournament will be eligible to compete at the State Tournament on April 2. From there, those who qualify will move on to the 2022 World Final, which will be held May 26 to May 29 at Iowa State. At this major university campus, teams will meet and compete with teams from across the U.S. and from around the world.
For those unfamiliar with Odyssey of the Mind (OotM), it is an academic problem-solving competition that encourages school-age children to think outside the box, giving them opportunity to work together with imaginative and creative solutions to interesting problems. This year the students from Loyalsock have been puzzling out how to solve "Escape vroOM," a problem which includes one or more team-created vehicles that will help a group of characters escape an unusual room; "The Musical Production," a problem on how to retell stories in musical form about historical figures, or "Life is a Circus," a problem that has a young person magically transported into a circus world.
OotM also provides more than problem-solving skills. The students gain experiences which emphasize teamwork, budgeting, time management, public speaking and more. All this gives young people a leg-up with necessary life skills and confidence to be successful in their upcoming adult years.
After several months of designing vehicles, building props, writing scripts, creating songs and learning to expect the unexpected, LTSD's five teams will be presenting their unique solution to a panel of independent judges and a public audience. Teams across the country and around the world will be doing the same thing. Every team, consisting of no more than seven members each, will have eight minutes to present their solution to the judges. The judging won't be on the "right" answer as there is no one right answer. Instead, they will be judged on how they've applied their knowledge, skill, talents and creativity. In addition to their long-term problem, each team will have eight minutes to solve a spontaneous problem on the spot.
LTSD's teams this year, running from elementary school-age to high-schoolers include:
Division I: Escape vroOM -- Ismaeel Bin-Qasim, Ibraheem Bin-Qasim, Aiden Flynn, Jude McHenry, Jane Sands and Serenity Springman. Coaches: Qasim Mahmood and Laura Sands
Division I: Kate Warne: The Musical Production -- Chloe Lewis, Scarlett Roma, Rani Shanaya, Violet Trapkus, Beatrix Way and Sloane Mazzullo. Coach: PJ Roma
Division I: Life is a Circus -- Manahil Fatima, Camille Gehr, Ritika Lohano, Shree Patel, Liam Raifsnider, Holly Raifsnider and Muhammad Haziq. Coaches: Chawn Gehr, Aneela Safder and Kamna Kanesh
Division II: Life is a Circus -- Mohammad Bin-Qasim, Lila Butters, Alex Edwards, Simone Gehr, Morgan Sands, Becca Winter and Grace Wolf. Coaches: Chris and Gina Edwards
Division III: Escape vroOM -- Ezra Black, Julia Ellis, Dakota Fluck, Preston Heiser, Maria Pardoe, Aadi Patel and Fin Stetts. Coaches: Sarina Skellenger and Mukti Patel
Each team has a coach who keeps the team on track, gets the kids their supplies and provides adult supervision; however, they do not provide the kids with solutions. OotM is all about kids shining with independence on their own ideas, solutions and work. But kids also get to learn when to ask for help if and when they need to learn a particular skill for their solution. Skills, they can get help with but props, scripts, ideas and materials are all completely and exclusively made by the team.