After superb finishes in their regional competitions in mid-March, all three of Wise School’s Odyssey of the Mind teams finished at the top of their state competitions on April 1, earning them spots in the Odyssey of the Mind World Finals later this spring.
It is the second year in a row that Wise has sent all three of its teams — third, fourth, and fifth grade — to the world championships, a first in school history. Last year, each of Wise’s teams finished in the top 20 in the world, with the fourth grade team taking home second, the third grade team taking home seventh, and the fifth grade team placing 17th at the finals in Sioux City, Iowa, on the campus of Iowa State University.
This year, Wise’s teams will head to East Lansing, Mich., where they will compete from May 24-27 on the Michigan State University campus against teams from across the globe.
In Odyssey of the Mind, teams of seven students select a problem, accompanied by a lengthy list of criteria, and develop creative solutions to the problem. The “solution” culminates in a one-of-a-kind performance that showcases not just an answer, but student creativity, teamwork, problem solving skills, artistic abilities, engineering aptitude, costuming preferences, and acting talents.
Similar to the regional and state competitions, teams in the World Finals present the most refined version of a long-term solution to a problem they have worked on for the previous nine months. They are also given a spontaneous challenge which tests their impromptu problem solving. Both elements combined for their overall score.
