It was one of three problems at the TK Spontaneous Spectacular last week. The event was open to all 14 of the district’s OM teams - from elementary students through high school - to help prepare them for the upcoming OM regional contest Feb. 8 and hopefully advancement to state and even world final contests.
“I love OM. It’s so fun and I get to have a lot of fun with friends and make new friends,” said Lexi Filipiak, a 7th grade student. “I love writing scripts and making props. I like the challenges and the teamwork.”
Teammate Max Schneider, also a 7th grader, said he’s excited about this year’s opportunity. “I especially like making new friends and going to the competitions. It’s just a lot of fun and you get to be with friends.”
Odyssey of the Mind, or OM, is a creative problem-solving program. Teams compete in different formats. First, teams take on a long-term problem which takes months to work on. It involves writing scripts, designing a set, constructing props and giving a theatrical performance. The second part of OM is the spontaneous portion where teams also have to generate solutions or answers to a task they have not seen before and have only a few minutes of prep time.
In both the long-term and spontaneous challenges there is never one right answer. That’s part of the beauty of OM. Teams are judged on creativity and their ability to think outside the box. They are judged on both creativity and teamwork. The more creative the solution or answers, the higher the points.
Page Elementary teacher and OM coach, Jacki Schneider, organizes the Spontaneous Spectacular for the district. “We host this event every year to help prepare our teams for the spontaneous portion of Odyssey of the Mind regionals. We will have most of our teams participating and they will travel to three different rooms and solve three different problems. One is a verbal problem, one is a verbal hands-on problem, and one is a hands-on problem. Each requires the teams to do different things in order to solve it.”
Several TK OM coaches and assistants started the night off by demonstrating their own abilities in a verbal challenge. They were asked to give examples of something that follows something else - like “spring follows winter,” or “I follow the leader.”
Points are awarded for each answer, but judges are especially looking for creative and unique answers and can award additional points for those. Coaches came up with some great examples of creative answers such as “Sadness follows a Detroit Lions playoff loss,” or “Bills follow a paycheck,” or “Hair loss follows being a parent.”
Next it was up to the OM teams to put their skills to the test in three different challenges. The bridge building challenge was an example of a hands-on project where teammates could talk together throughout the challenge.
The verbal/hands-on challenge involved creating a story. Teammates shared a single piece of paper that had a few lines already drawn on it. From there, they were challenged to complete a drawing and tell a story. They had 2 minutes to plan and then 5 minutes to draw and tell their story. Members were all supposed to be included in the contest and after each addition to the drawing was made, the person making the drawing had to verbalize what they added to the story. The goal was not just to gain all 35 tickets for each new drawing, but also to create a unique and creative story.
One team built a house for “Bob,” his wife and two kids. They added a garden and flowers and had a loaf of bread and cheese. Then the home was destroyed by a tornado.
Another team took the same piece of paper and built their story around a fish tank filled with piranhas, a shark and a moon shining over the tank. There was an alien on the moon and an astronaut spacewalking. The muffin man with a top hat was fishing out of the fish tank and a surfer cruised over the top of a popcorn box tank.
The third challenge was the verbal challenge, much like the one demonstrated by the coaches. During practice teams found they excelled in some challenges more than others, but nearly all said they enjoyed the time spent together and the preparation for competition.
Fifth-grader Sage Filipiak and her team advanced to the world finals a year ago and she’s ready for more success with some of the same team members and some new ones this year. “I’m insanely excited for the competitions. It’s so much fun.”
Landon Lambitz, a member of one of the middle school teams, said he enjoys the close bonds he forms with teammates. “I really like the teamwork. Everyone can come up with different ideas and then we have to decide together which idea or combination of ideas is the best. It’s not always easy.”
Teammate Sophia Weeks agreed, adding that she likes the skills she builds through OM and the determination it takes to get through all the problems together.
Teams compete first at the regional event Feb. 8 at Wayland. Top teams advance from there to the state finals March 15 hosted at TK. The best teams from the state finals advance to the world finals which will be held this year May 21-24 at Michigan State University. The world finals alternate between Michigan State and Iowa State universities.
Schneider said the OM program at TK has seen a lot of success over the years with many teams advancing to the state finals. TK has also sent teams to the world finals for several years.