Odyssey of the Mind Competition to Take Place Saturday

A NASA-sponsored competition is taking place across the world the next few months, but local schools are competing this weekend. 

The Odyssey of the Mind competition will be held Saturday, Feb. 19, at Strawberry Crest High School.  The full day event starts at 7:30 a.m. and hopes to culminate with an awards ceremony at 6:30 p.m.  

Sponsored by Buccaneer Bay Odyssey of the Mind, this regional competition will feature students from six counties: Hillsborough, Polk, Manatee, Pinellas, Hardee and DeSoto. 

Among the local schools competing are Symmes Elementary, Collins Elementary, Stowers Elementary and Cimino Elementary schools.  

The Odyssey of the Mind is a competition sponsored by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, giving kids in kindergarten through 12th grade an opportunity to be creative and use their cognitive thinking skills in a competitive environment. There are also opportunities for the collegiate level.

The program itself has been around for almost 25 years, letting kids solve problems using creative skills and having some fun. There are two phases of the competition; the long-term problem solving and spontaneous.  For the long-term project, the students are able to work for several months on a topic of choice from a pre-determined list.  The spontaneous project is given to the students and coaches on the day of the competition.

"The interesting thing about the competition," according to Jacqueline Adkins, fourth-grade teacher at Symmes Elementary, "is that there is a budget we have to stick to.  No school or group can outshine because they have access to more money."

The creator of The Odyssey of the Mind competition, Dr. C. Samuel Micklus,wanted the kids to be able to learn from each other and cheer each other on.  Dr. Micklus is still very involved in the competition as the one creating the problems the children have to solve. 

Teri Madill, assistant principal at Collins Elementary in Riverview, said, "It is all about the children creatively solving a problem and performing their own skit,  creating their own props and backdrops as well as their costumes."

There are different levels of competition the children compete in according to their grade and age level.  This helps to make the competition more of an equal playing field.

There is a regional-level competition, which Hillsborough County competes in this weekend.  From there, the chosen winners will advance to state and then Odyssey of the Mind World Finals. This gives kids the opportunity to meet other creative minds from their region, state and possibly the world.

Various volunteers of differing backgrounds and career fields judge the competition. They are given strict guidelines to follow. However, they also judge the groups on their "style."  There are different scoring criteria for the long-term problem and the spontaneous project.