Millburn Odyssey Of The Mind Team Takes World Championship

MILLBURN, NJ - A month after the Millburn High School VEX Robotics Team won the World Championship, Glenwood School’s “Hide in Plain Sight” Odyssey of the Mind Team finished first at the World Finals at Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan on Saturday, May 24.

More than 900 teams competed, with each team representing the first or second place winner from states across the United States and countries around the world. Millburn Schools had six teams at the World Finals.

“Performing with a great amount of effort, impressive creativity, awesome acting and strong teamwork," Principal David Jasin said. "In Glenwood’s very successful 16 years of participating in Odyssey, it is exciting to have a first place team and trophy.”

The whole school clapped the team and trophy into school. The video is below:

The Hide in Plain Sight winning team was made up of Anthony Cassano, Prisha Bhavnani, Matthew Petersen, Alex Finkelstein, Haddon Finan, Sophia Skalkotos and Zachary Stern. The coaches were Elizabeth Cassano, Nicole Petersen, Gina Finkelstein and Glenwood teacher and Odyssey Coordinator Kate Naso.

Millburn’s other teams also placed well:

• Glenwood’s Opposites Distract team came in at #12 and the Structure Toss team placed at #15.
• Washington School’s Classics – Leonardo’s Workshop team placed 14th overall out of all elementary school Classics teams in the competition. Team members are: Emery Walls, Caroline Cheng, Itamar Kaplun, Ishaan Bharadwaj, Kaden Shum, Katherine Gluck and Yuvi Chaudhary.
• The OMER to the Rescue-Again team placed 18th overall out of all elementary school Vehicle teams in the entire world. This team also placed 1st in the Spontaneous category for elementary vehicle teams. Team members are: Jack Tuso, Oliver Campbell, Abhi Bathula, Jenna Foudeh, Kaitlyn Mai, Lukas Kaplan and Mina Soltani.
• The Millburn Middle School Balsa Structure Odyssey Team competed against the very best teams from across the United States as well as the 14 top international teams. The Millburn team placed 31st out of all middle school teams in the entire world. Team members are Ben Huang, Grant Zhou, Ryan Feldman, Mikey Krigsman, Rohan Dubey, and Aaron Pan.

In one more piece of Odyssey news, Millburn High School Senior Hayden Shaw was a recipient of the 2019 Rita Ostroff Ginsburg Memorial Scholarship from New Jersey Odyssey of the Mind. Shaw participated on four different Odyssey teams during his school years, including a Balsa Structure team in 5th grade at Glenwood, a Vehicle team in 6th grade at Millburn Middle School, a Technical team as a sophomore, and a Classics team as a junior at Millburn High School. Shaw was also president of the MHS Odyssey club and team captain.

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