Spontaneous Scrimmage After School At Reed

By Eliza Hallabeck

 The cafeteria at Reed Intermediate School started filling with Odyssey Of The Mind Teams from Newtown and surrounding towns after school on Thursday, January 15 at 3:45 pm for a Spontaneous Scrimmage.

Each team that attended the Spontaneous Scrimmage was assigned a table in the cafeteria. Before the event began, a team of students from Reed Intermediate School gave tours of the school to each visiting team.

According to Odyssey of the Mind, it is an international educational program that provides creative problem-solving opportunities for students from kindergarten through college. Teams of students participate in problem-solving competitions at the local state level and the world level.

Last year was the first year Newtown participated in Odyssey of the Mind, according to Michael Ziluck, who’s mother put the Spontaneous Scrimmage at Reed together. Three of the four Newtown teams went on to compete in the Connecticut Finals and World Finals. At the Connecticut Finals, level two of Newtown’s teams took second place and one team took gold last year.

“There are way more teams this year,” Michael said.

Michael’s team, which calls itself Zeus’s Furry, were the tour guides for the afternoon at Reed Intermediate School.

“We give tours to people who do not know the school,” said Marie Randle, a student at Reed and a member of Zeus’s Furry.

Members of Zeus’s Furry gave themselves a name to go along with their groups theme. Apollo, Artemis, Hades, and Persephone were four of the names the team members have chosen this year as a reaction to one of the Long Term Problems, The Lost Labor Of Hercules, which the team has chosen to solve for the upcoming Odyssey of the Mind programs.

The Spontaneous Scrimmage at Reed Intermediate School was a single event hosted to encourage the students participating in Odyssey of the Mind this year, according to Ms Ziluck.

Ms Ziluck said when she heard there was only going to be one spontaneous event held in the state this year, she put the day at Reed Intermediate School together. The spontaneous events are separate from the finals, and have no bearing to the teams’ ultimate performance. The spontaneous days prepare the students for when they can anticipate at the finals.

This year’s Connecticut State Final will take place on March 28. The top scoring teams will move on to the World Finals, which will take place at Iowa State University in Iowa from May 27 until May 30.

 At Reed Intermediate School on Friday, there were 13 teams from Newtown and 6 teams from Brookfield, including a team called Superstition Station from Huckleberry Hill Elementary School.

Michael said the Zeus’s Furry team also helped set up signs for the event.

According to Ms Ziluck the students do everything involved with the Odyssey of the Mind problems themselves. Odyssey of the Mind develops problems for the students to work on and solve, and they can have no help from others. The long term projects like the Lost Labor Of Hercules, are projects the students work on for six months up until the finals.

Spontaneous problems can be brain teasers the students are given to solve in a short period of time.

After Ms Ziluck announced the beginning of the event on Friday, the teams broke into groups and went to different stations that were set up in classrooms to participate in the spontaneous challenges.

According to Ms Ziluck when students are working on their solutions the team leaders, “can’t even tell them ‘wow what a cool idea.’”

Ms Ziluck said she has to hide her face from her team, because they would be able to read her response on her face. She also said being at the World Finals last year with her previous team was like being at the Olympics.

“It’s the largest intellectual competition in the world,” said Ms Ziluck.