Odyssey of the Mind - 3rd Grade Team

Collin has been working with his Odyssey of the Mind team of seven students since October 2016.  They have met weekly to work on Spontaneous problems (verbal and non-verbal puzzles and problem-solving) and the Long-Term Problem.  They chose the vehicle problem which was titled Catch Me if You Can.  They had to solve the problem following very specific rules.  It took them until January to build the 3 vehicles that met the requirements.  Then, they had to come up with a story about why the vehicles were running away from someone chasing them.  Then, they took several weeks to practice the sorry line.  Two of the three vehicles had problems running the way the way there were designed.  Sometimes they worked, and then some times they did not.  Instead of creating new vehicles, they decided to try these and hoped they worked on the day of competition.


The day of competition, they were all excited and came prepared to hang out for the day.  The Long-Term Problem was scheduled at 11am and the Spontaneous Problem at 2:15pm which meant we had a few hours in between to eat, play outside and get ready for the next Problem.  The Long-Term Problem was delayed an hour so they did not start until noon.  Trying to keep seven 8 and 9 year olds occupied and not too bored since 10am is challenging enough.  Now, they were getting hungry and falling apart.  As the coach, it was tough to decide between getting a snack, getting some quick lunch that was served at the school or skip it because we could be called to present in 5 minutes.  It worked out fine that most of the kids got a prepared Chick-fil-A bagged meal.  The sugar in the cookie should give them a needed sugar rush right before it was time for them to compete.  Also during this time, the Principal and Vice Principal of their school stopped by so they could watch them perform.  They were excited that the Principals were there.

Checking in with the front desk

Going over the paperwork as a team

When it came time for them to perform, they were focused and ready.  The first vehicle worked like it always did, then the second one worked....Yeah!!!!  The third one did not work and had to be re-run.  It was fixed and re-run...but it did not work again.  Instead of wrapping up and introducing the team like we had practiced several times, the vehicle "engineer" worked on the car again...and they ran out of time.  Each team is allotted 8 minutes for the performance.  If the vehicles work, they are finished under 5 minutes so the extra time is helpful...but they are not supposed to run out of time.  We were proud of how they worked together and remained calm after the third vehicle continued not to work.

Waiting their turn to start their presentation

Getting instructions from one of the judges and understanding what to expect

Kamila is narrating and starting the presentation

Camilo is working on the vehicles

Bella and Saige are Max and the Grinch

Grinch is talking about stealing Christmas again

Working on the second vehicle

Eli is helping Camilo with the third vehicle

Collin is playing Santa.  He refused to wear the boots, belt and beard because he was too hot.  Really hard to blame him for that.



Saige and Collin wondering if they need to wrap up the presentation to finish on time

The judges asking questions about the vehicles and how they came up with the idea

Between the Problems, we went our separate ways to get lunch and then met on the playground or hung out in the nice weather outside because the kids had been inside all day so far.  The parents needed to be outside too because it's really noisy inside with at least 500 people in the building. 

Great picture of the team outside

There was a little break down between several of the team members during this time mainly because I think they were tired and their patience was running out.  To be on a team like this, the kids are all Type A.  Getting each other to agree and play together regularly is already a challenge.  Being 1:30pm on the day of competition was making it worse. 


Finally, time for Spontaneous.  Collin and another team member sat out because only 5 team members could compete in this part of the competition.  This REALLY did not make Collin happy so I had to talk to him about working with a team and the selection process.  That did not help his spirits any.  He was fine once the team was out.  During this time, I got the scores for the team.  They scored 155 out of 250.  I was so proud of them for that score and the following comments from the judges: 

• “Good Job!”
• “Great team work!”
• “Good job – Great patience!”
• “I loved it!  Very clever vehicles, simple and complicated”
• “What a super awesome job. Keep up the great job.” 

We did get a penalty of 5 for the “Spirit of the Problem” for not having at least one vehicle travel from the side of the garage.  We knew we were going to get this one because we agreed early on to skip requirement this because we needed to move on in interest of time.  The other deductions were for the last two vehicles not doing what they were supposed to do.  I did not see any obvious points deducted for not wrapping up the presentation and running out of time. 

 

I am proud and, frankly shocked, to announce that our team placed 5^th out of 17.  We are going to State Competition!