Mark Twain Middle School Odyssey of the Mind Team headed to State Tournament

Odyssey of the Mind is a creative, cooperative, and completely fun problem-solving program for students from kindergarten through college. Teams work throughout the school year under the guidance of an adult coach, collaborating in critical thinking as they solve problems and create performances. Some problems are technical in nature while others are artistic or performance-related. While there are guidelines that provide the team specific requirements necessary for the five available problems, each team comes up with their own unique solution to their problem of choice.

Three Mark Twain Middle School teams participated in the Regional Odyssey of the Mind Tournament last month at Patriot High School in Nokesville, VA. The team pictured in this article (Back row: Julia Drennan, Jessica Lee, Raieesa Norat, Madelyn Khoury, Michelle Khoury (coach), Front row: Alina Hollister, Francis Reyes, Miranda Khoury) competed against ten other teams solving the problem “Pandora’s Box” and placed 1st in their problem’s division. In this classics problem, the teams were required to put a video game spin on the story of Pandora’s Box. A gamer character took on a multi-level game inspired by the Greek myth. The game included a prologue that depicted the original story of Pandora’s Box, three characters representing different evils that escaped the box, and a power meter that represents the gamer character’s health. To beat the game, the player advanced to the final level where it released hope into the world.

The State Tournament will be held at South County High School in Lorton, VA on Saturday, April 18th. First and second place winners will have the opportunity to advance to the World Finals at Michigan State University in May.

Be sure to visit the team’s web page to read more about this amazing group of students and updates on their standing at the upcoming competition.