Odyssey of the Mind—

Reed Students Heading To Odyssey Of The Mind World Championship

By Martha Coville

When 14 fifth and sixth graders from the Reed Intermediate School, and one second grade student from Head O’ Meadow, travel to Maryland in June for the Odyssey of the Mind World Championship, they will be packing some unusual luggage. Fifth grader Bethany Dubois plans on arriving with a blue net bed canopy (minus the bed). Katie Wojcik, also in the fifth grade, is still trying to figure out how to transport a Power Wheels car with water bottles for wheels across the Mason-Dixon line. And Doug Main might end up needing to clear the transport of a 24-foot-by-6-inch plastic rocket launcher with the Federal Aviation Authority.

Doug’s rocket launcher is a prop, of course. He belongs to one of three Odyssey of the Mind teams from Reed selected to compete in the program’s world championship at the University of Maryland in College Park over the Memorial Day weekend. An Odyssey official in Sewell, N.J., said that although this is not the first time several teams from the same school have qualified to advance to the world championship, the students’ achievements remain distinctive.

The Odyssey of the Mind program is relatively new to the Newtown School district and has quickly become very popular. The program allows teams of up to five students to choose among several challenges. Each challenge has specific guidelines. Certain props must be certain sizes; others can only be touched by certain team members. One challenge, which had four components, required that students move a certain number of feet from one task to another.

At Reed, and also at Head O’ Meadow, where two teams of five students performed for their parents and friends, students’ enthusiasm is unmistakable. When The Bee sat down to talk with the fifth and sixth graders, each was so eager to describe the program that they spoke three or four at a time. Information spilled out of them: they complimented, interrupted, and corrected each other while demonstrating the poses and accents they had invented for their skits.

One student tried to explain what distinguished her team at the state competition; a second interjected to list the mistakes that almost cost them the prize; a third abruptly ran off to fetch medals, official T-shirts, and costumes; and a fourth rattled off the list of improvements they needed to make before the world competition.

Heading Into Battle

Ann Ziluck coaches the only Reed School team that took first place in its division. The second and third teams from Reed qualified for the world championship by winning second place.

“It’s funny to see the motivation rising for the world championship,” she said. Her son Michael is on her team.

“The other night I thought Michael had gone up to bed, and I found him sitting on the cement floor in the basement with every screwdriver we own spread out.” When she tried to persuade him to go to bed, Michael told her, “Mom, we are going to world’s! Not trying to would be like going into battle and not bothering to draw your sword.”

Michael is a fifth grader at Reed. He and his teammates Portia Baudisch, Bailey Smith, Kristina Patterson, and Forest Speed, also in the fifth grade, chose a problem called The Three Eccentrics.

“I really like acting,” Michael said, “and this was the one that had the most acting. Plus, you didn’t have to make a lot of props.” He gave Doug Main, another Odyssey participant from Reed, credit as the resident builder.

Portia said the challenge was a good match for her personality. “I chose it because I’m eccentric myself, so I like being weird and different. And it had a science component. I really like science.”

In their skit, Michael, Portia, and Forest played three eccentrics who accept help from a pair of scientists. “So there’s three misfits,” said Michael. “One character was a salesman/skier,” he said. “That was me. I had a blazer on, plus ski pants, ’cause I thought that would look really funny.”

Portia said she is also interested in fashion. “I was a supermodel on and off the performance,” she said. “I did people’s hair. My hair I did with streaks of blue. I did Michael’s, every single hair red. Forest’s hair I did a mohawk of red. For Christina, I did red streaks, then for Bailey I did a red bun. But during the performance, I was the model.”

Forest’s role was simpler. “I was a wizard,” he said. “I wore just a purple cape.” Michael tried to explain that Forest’s magical powers were limited. “But he can’t actually,” Michael managed to say, before he was interrupted.

The fourth and fifth teammates, Christina and Bailey, are scientists who save the day for the eccentrics. “I was the astronomer,” said Christina. “I helped them solve the problem, like how to move the moon backwards.”

“I was the other scientist,” put in Bailey.

Michael explained that each eccentric had to have a defining characteristic. “So I have a twitch,” he said, “Portia poses, and Forest has a wand.” Portia ran through a series of catwalk poses like Madonna in her Strike a Pose video.

Michael demonstrated his twitch, jerking his head down to the right. “One of the judges thought I really had a twitch,” he said proudly.

 

Underdogs Take

Second Place

Katie Wojcik’s teammate Charlotte Gray said “we were actually the underdogs” at the state competition. Katie and Charlotte are sixth graders, as are their teammates Bethany Dubois and Rebecca Viodola. Since they were competing against sixth, seventh, and eighth graders, Charlotte said, “We were the youngest, so everyone was surprised that we won second place.” It was also the first year the students participated in the Odyssey program.

The four girls decided to tackle the Road Rally Challenge, which required them to build a vehicle and drive it through four checkpoints. A “sports-related task” had to be performed at each stop.

The most challenging part of the problem turned out to be the vehicle. “It was pretty hard to build,” Bethany admitted. Katie said that they did not actually have to build the car from scratch: they could use a small car, like the Power Wheels, as long as they “changed an integral part of propulsion system. That took the longest.”

“There was no way we could do the wiring or the gears,” said Bethany, looking over the car. It was a small Barbie jeep, just big enough for a toddler. The girls had painted it blue, and attached water coolers to the rear axle, in place of wheels. “The new wheels look really great,” said Bethany. “I like how it all came together.” Charlotte said that they had actually found the coolers on the beach.

“I really enjoyed the creativity,” said Rebecca.

Charlotte explained that Odyssey’s rules about adult involvement in the projects are very strict. Pushing her hands in front of her, palms facing front, she looked like a police officer stopping traffic. Her tone was firm and emphatic. “The judges said if the coaches suggest an idea, you have to say, ‘No. Back off.’”

The team actually lost five points, she said, because their coaches, Anna Wiedemann and Dawn Gray, helped them cut a piece of plywood to use for a seat in their vehicle. “They just started the cut for us,” Charlotte said. The team replaced the plywood with a stainless steal serving platter, screwed into the plastic car.

Bethany and Katie explained that although they scored well enough on their Road Rally challenge, they actually qualified for the world championship because of their solutions to a series of spontaneous problems. “That’s actually why we’re going to world’s,” said Bethany. “For a vehicle, we were third or fourth, but we won spontaneous.”

“We did the best in our division,” said Katie.

Rebecca gave an example of a spontaneous problem. “One problem was ‘pretend you’re a team of aliens coming back to earth,’ trying to understand how humans use cellphones,” she said. Rebecca was the head alien, Charlotte the investigator. “I was like, ‘It’s always glued to their ear. Explain this earth ear object,’” Rebecca recounted. Charlotte’s alien replied in a funny stage accent, “I was like, ‘What is this? A transporter? It doesn’t even work.’”

A Creative Theme

The third team from Reed School also participated in the Road Rally Challenge. Doug Main, one team member, said, “I chose this project, where we had to make the car, because I like woodworking and machines.”

Doug and five other members of his team — Kyle Watkins, Baxter Hankin, Emma Hungaski, Jesse Sailer, and Meagan McDonald — are all fifth grade students. Baxter’s sister Talia is also on the team. She is in the second grade at Head O’ Meadow. Michelle Hankin, their mother, coaches together with Lynn Hungaski and Tricia McDonald.

Emma agreed that Doug was responsible for most of the props. “He’s Bob the Builder,” she said. “No,” Doug objected, “I’m Doug the builder.” Emma got the last word, “We wanted him to wear overalls, like Bob the Builder, but he wouldn’t,” she said as an aside.

But Doug was modest. “Me and Baxter were partners,” he said. And Baxter also spread the credit around. “Everyone helped with everything,” he said.

Doug and Baxter found the challenge as difficult as Katie, Charlotte, Bethany, and Rebecca had, but for different reasons. Whereas Bethany was at a loss as to how to change her vehicle’s propulsion system, Doug and Baxter faced a more systemic problem.

“In the beginning, everything kept falling apart,” Baxter explained. “If the competition had happened a few days earlier, we wouldn’t have won.

They also struggled, right down to the end, with Doug’s rocket launcher. “On the last day before the state competition, we finally got the rocket launcher working,” said Talia.

Jessie said that the skit took them on a tour through Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory. “I guess we thought it was a creative theme,” he explained. “We thought of doing a jungle theme, but then we thought other kids might do that.” The rocket launcher, for example stood in as Wonka’s great glass elevator.

A fourth team from Reed School participated in the Connecticut state competition, but will not be advancing to the world championship. Fifth graders Hannah Fitzgerald, Joseph Praino, Andrew Braun, Carl Whippie, and Caitlin Filiato wrote a humorous skit about dinosaur extinction. Their coaches were Robin Fitzgerald and Annie Praino.

John Williams

Meets R.E.M.

Finally, two teams from Head O’ Meadow participated in the Odyssey program. They performed their skits for family members and friends on March 28. Patty Cheh said that her team, including third grader Brigdit Spies, fourth grader Jerl Draper, second grader Shannon Cheh, and kindergarten student Steven Cheh, has been practicing once a week since October.

As John Williams Indian Jones theme music played in the background, the students told a story about how the dinosaurs found a video game system in a cave. They quickly became addicted to a Star Wars game, and disaster struck when the characters from the game came to life. The dramatization was impressive. The students had built a large TV set with a wooden frame. Brown paper, from a wide roll, covered two sides of the frame, and pictures drawn on the paper represented the game interface.

When storm troopers Darth Vader and Princess Leia burst out through the paper, they went to work on the dinosaurs. Cardboard mock-ups of animals stood no chance against light sabers and blasters.

And the R.E.M. song “It’s the End of the World as We Know It” took on a new meaning. The students played the song as they sent the dinosaurs to extinction.

“What I love about Odyssey is that every kid brings what is unique about them,” said coach Sue Murray. She and Sharon Saunders coach HOM’s second team. Kendra Saunders is the team’s only first grader; Owen Sullivan, McKenzie Iazzetta, Robert Murray, Rett Saunders, and Jenna Carvalho are all second graders.

Kendra and her teammates created a skit with more characters than any other Newtown Odyssey team. Several students played more than one part. The skit told the story of a paleontologist, Robert Murray, who falls asleep while giving a tour of the Museum of Natural History. He wakes from his fitful sleep to find himself in places as perilous as the middle Paleolithic age, where he is bitten by a prehistoric shark, and ancient Scotland, where he is almost swallowed up by the Loch Ness monster.

“The moral of the story,” Robert says, when he finally wakes up safely in the museum, “is never sleep on the job.”

Students from the Middle East, Africa, and even Hong Kong will be coming to Maryland for the world championship, and Katie, Charlotte, Rebecca, and Bethany hope they can host a foreign team. If they are matched with one, they will bring the team back to Newtown for four days, to give the students a taste of life in the United States.

Coach Dawn Gray also said that the three Reed School teams have volunteered to build the parade float representing Connecticut at the championship’s opening ceremony. The competition opens with a parade, she explained, and each team will march alongside a float representing their team or country. She said that her students have chosen a Barnum & Bailey’s theme for their float, since P.T. Barnum is from Connecticut