Okay, so if you read yesterday's post, you've been waiting anxiously (don't laugh, it could happen) for the story of the OSU team and their success. Warning: this post is loooooong. Too long. Sorry. Skip to the end for the video of the 2013 First Place Problem 3 Division IV team. Then come back and enjoy the story of how it all happened.
GO POKES! Oklahoma State University's first ever OM team comes home World Champions!
A short history of OM in Stillwater
In the 2005-2006 school year, my daughter Tory and son Robin agreed to try putting together two OM teams. We knew of OM from schools in Nebraska (where Tory was too young for a team) and at the DODDS school in Germany (where Tory actually participated one year on a team.) We knew the basics; we knew that Destination ImagiNation was an option as well (having had friends who had participated in both programs), and we started researching to find out how to begin a team.
Judith and Robin on the vehicle they constructed, with the beginnings of Sassy the Sasquatch (later covered in fur.) 2006.
At the time, I was a Gifted and Talented Program Specialist for Stillwater Public Schools. OM and DI are often used for gifted programming, so I asked for and received permission to bring the program to Stillwater Schools. At the time, DI did not have a presence in the state, so we went with OM. We formed two teams (one sixth grade, Division 2, and one high school, Division 3.) The kids and I recruited team members, the teams chose problems, and we got to work.
That first year was crazy hard. I went to every training and support meeting I could and searched for any information I could find online (remember, YouTube wasn't up and running yet.) I even visited the other region's tournament the week before our tournament just to make sure we were on the right page. (We were, sort of, and some of my other students attended that tournament with me and got excited about forming teams the following year.) Until you've actually attended a competition, you really don't have any idea what the program is all about. Our kids did okay, enjoyed the whole process, and most came back the following year.
Another shot of our pathetic first attempt at the vehicle problem, 2006. Nice dragon, huh? He did have electronic eyes, which was pretty cool.
On the middle school team were a very young Robin and Mason, two sixth grade boys with huge potential. Mason's comment after the first year: "This is the most fun activity I have ever been involved in." Something about power tools, creativity, teamwork, and autonomy (the team must create all aspects of the solution and make all decisions with no outside assistance from anyone) really piques kids' interest, and these two were hooked!
2008 - Stillwater fielded twelve teams!
Mason and Robin continued enthusiastically - every year recruiting new team members to replace those who left. Their second year they qualified for World Finals (winning first or second at State earns the team a trip to Worlds) and continued to qualify every year after (sometimes just barely). Our first trip to Worlds was to Michigan State University in 2007, and we GOT SO LUCKY to be housed on the same dorm floor as a team from Edmond, Oklahoma (it's about an hour away from Stillwater) who were the same age. Our kids hit it off and became good friends, and we enjoyed competing with (and often against) them every year. Once Facebook enabled them to correspond easily, they even started going to each others' birthday parties and other events.
2007 World Finals - Michigan State - the year we met the Edmond team.
Competitors, yes, but friends too.
The cool thing about these teams becoming friends: Never was the fact that they were competing against each other an issue. They cheered for each other and encouraged each other and celebrated together. For instance, at many competitions they would form victory arches for the other team to run through. Best kids ever.
Mason, Claire, Lucy, Robin, Jacob, Slava at a pizza place in Maryland in 2008. Great to see our friends again!
Over the years, our solutions got better and better (although our style never even came close to the scores of the Edmond team.) Finally, in 2011, the Stillwater team heard their name called at the World Finals awards ceremony. Fourth Place, a big win for our team! (You can see the video of that Problem 5, Division III, "Full Circle" performance here.)
Robin, me, and Mason after hearing our team won FOURTH PLACE in the world! 2011 - University of Maryland.
At World Finals awards ceremonies, only the top three teams get to cross the stage. Mason's comment when we won 4th place was, "Next year, we walk." Unfortunately, they did walk - across the stage at Gallagher-Iba Arena in Stillwater, where they graduated from high school the same night they could have been competing in Iowa. Not competing during their senior year was a super tough decision; Robin had been saying for years that he wouldn't mind missing high school graduation to go to Worlds, but then three of the seven team members were elected class officers - and all of them had to speak at graduation.
(In fact, "not doing OM during senior year" ended up not working so well. I asked for some help coaching a new team, and within hours Mason and Robin were inspired to form a team of three. Madi, new to OM but anxious to try it, and Robin and Mason started working in January on an incredible three-person farce, with slamming doors, multiple characters and costume changes, and characters climbing in and out of windows and up and down stairs.)
(In OM, you really need at least five people on a team due to the nature of the Spontaneous Problem-Solving part of the competition. For this three-person effort, Logan and Kelsey were recruited to attend competition at Regional and State simply to add their skill to the spont team. Perfectly legal and legit. It happened again this year; more on that later.)
2012's three- (or is it five-?) person team before competing at Regionals.
All-Star Team
High school is rough for OM kids. The season is long, it involves many, many hours, and the type of kids who like to do OM are the same kids who are in band, orchestra, Youth In Government, school plays, student council, and so on. Several times when trying to recruit team members, we discussed the idea of forming an "Oklahoma All-Star team" made up of kids from both Stillwater and Edmond. That's exactly what happened this year.
Mason and Robin getting ready to perform; Lauren getting in character behind them.
OM has a collegiate division open to any adult taking college classes; teams can be made up of members from a variety of schools. Our team knew going into their freshman year that they wanted to do OM as Division IV competitors, and six of them attended OSU, so the Institute for Creativity and Innovation at OSU sponsored the team (thanks, Melanie!) Five Stillwater kids and two Edmond kids competed, using Google Docs and GroupMe to plan their script during the school year. Once finals week ended, they all started hanging out at my house in order to build their solution. Two weeks later, they put their stuff on the props truck and boarded the bus, headed for Michigan once again.
Claire, University of North Texas vocal performance major, sings as the music box opens.
Their solution was phenomenal. Division IV usually has fewer participants but bigger crowds, and the crowd at this team's performance was hugely appreciative of their work. In true college-level fashion, the team used metaphors to meet the required elements. Their problem ("Art-chitecture: The Musical") required a replica of an actual structure, with artwork that goes missing and is later integrated into the structure. Teams had to have two sets of choreographed moves with music and lyrics.k Several of the elements were judged on artistic quality, and the quality of the performance is also important in Problem 3.
One set of choreographed moves had The Shah picking up the female assistant and shoving her in front of him for protection. Another had a sword brandishing in "four-four time" like an orchestra conductor. Subtle things you don't notice unless you are the judge or know the team's work.
Without further ado, I give you the video of the winning performance. Problem 3, Division IV, Odyssey of the Mind World Finals 2013 at Michigan State University; here is Oklahoma State University's solution. Congrats to these great young adults!
(Listen closely to the father at the end. It will give you goose bumps or make you cry. Or both. Usually both, for me.)
Aren't these kids fantastic? And aren't we lucky they are still doing OM?
Last year, I bragged about some of my students who competed and did well at Odyssey of the Mind World Finals. It's time to brag again! Here in Oklahoma, our thumbs are in our suspenders and we are burstin' our buttons with pride at the success our teams had at World Finals this year.
Oklahoma strong, fresh from the tornadoes but ever persevering, we had three teams called to the stage at the awards ceremony on Saturday, May 25.
The first (I will write about them in another post) earned Second Place in Problem Four, Division IV (collegiate.) Yay, Ron and Tracy!
The other two teams? All MY KIDS! Here we are after winning, with two FIRST PLACE trophies.
These two teams are made up of kids I've encouraged, coached, taught, and enjoyed for years. The younger group, from Stillwater Junior High, were almost all my students from second grade through fifth grade. This is the same team that almost won last year (with a couple of roster changes.) I wish I could take credit for their success, but they worked for many years to get here - I was just happy to be along this year for the ride.
The older kids are my ex-high-school team. Two of them (my son Robin and his friend Mason, shown above in 2007 during their team's first visit to World Finals) were among the very first OM team members in Stillwater, when they were in sixth grade and we started two teams here (2006). They've continued every year since, topping out at Fourth Place their Junior year. This year, in their freshman year at Oklahoma State, they brought OM Division IV to OSU and formed a team (adding two ex-opponents from Edmond that we've become fast friends with over the years.) (More on this team, their solution, and their extraordinary friendship later.)
Both teams have worked for years to get called to that stage, and we couldn't have been happier to hear our names called. What a great year for Stillwater and Oklahoma!
You want to know more about the winning solutions, right?
The junior high team, competing in Problem 2 "The Email Must Go Through" was required to "send" three "emails" eight feet across the stage using some technical means (remember that in Odyssey problems, the team must meet certain requirements, but do so in the most creative way they can.) This team chose to utilize an Oklahoma forest as their setting, and brought in forest creatures like an armadillo (completely covered in pop tabs), a beaver (layer upon layer of coffee stir sticks), a buffalo, a spider, and an owl (her costume, although it looks soft and fluffy, is almost 100% milk jugs, cut into thousands of feathers.)
Their emails were sent via an "automata" (more on that will come soon), a mechanical device with a crank, crank-shaft, and a variety of levers which was used to move the email messages across the stage. Their "spam filter" (required element) was the spider's web, which sorted and delivered the emails to three different locations. One email was diverted (required element) by a tornado. This team didn't just SAY a tornado blew the email off course - they actually created a spinning, whirling tornado that swept across the stage. You can see it near the beginning of the performance on the video (sadly, their performance was a bit off that morning, but they did earn all the points they needed.)
Here is the video of their performance:
Last year, this team took first place in Long-term and first in Style, but had a rough (rough) day at Spontaneous, which is the portion of the competition where the teams are given a challenge to solve instantly. We worked hard this year to improve our spontaneous performance, and (drum roll, please) this team took first at spont this year! Their long-term was also first, but only by a HALF A POINT, and they were second in style. Spontaneous can win and lose OM competitions, we can tell you!
Tomorrow, I'll write about the OSU team and showcase their performance!
Oklahoma summers became FAR more bearable two years ago when our friends gave us their big, blue, inflatable ring pool. We were skeptical that its less-than-four-foot depth and 16-foot diameter would A.) be large enough for adult fun and B.) stay cool enough to be refreshing. We could not have been more wrong! We LOVE getting in our pool, climbing up on our spring floats, and relaxing. We've even learned how to read books and magazines while floating. (Carefully! No library books! Buy books at garage sales for the pool!)
Last summer, I paid 50 cents for an old Styrofoam cooler with a lid, designed to hold six cans (another garage sale find). I assume it was designed for boating or fishing. We used it as our Beer Boat by tying a string and clothespin to it. It floated along with us, safely holding our beverages most of the time. Unfortunately, it sometimes became unbalanced. "Beer overboard!" is not what you want to hear in your pool!
Our original Beer Boat
This year, we have a new pool and summer is becoming crazy hot. Fed up with the U.S.S. Tippy, I decided to innovate. I had seen this floating cooler, but I don't need a whole cooler! (How cool is it, though?! I will definitely be keeping this one in mind if I have a party!) Looking instead for individual floating cup holders, I found this instructable and its related comments. One prototype later, and here's my take on the beverage barge.
Materials
pool noodle
plastic cup big enough to hold your beverage of choice, in its container, comfortably
small rope (about 3 1/2 feet)
medium-sized zip ties (3)
palm-sized rock or handful of smaller rocks
sturdy mesh fabric - maybe an onion or orange bag?
Step One - Cutting
Cut two 7" long pieces of the noodle.
Cut a hole for your cup holder.
My cup holder is an Eskimo Joe's cup. If you live in Stillwater, you have a cupboard or drawer full of these. They hold 22 ounces, but they are shorter and squatter than regular plastic cups. (I can relate to being shorter and squatter, darnit.) You may have seen the Eskimo Joe's logo on t-shirts around the world. It's famous.
The bottom of my cup had a diameter of three inches, so I marked three inches in the center of each noodle piece, then drew half a circle to cut.
Step Two - Connecting
Feed a 20" piece of rope through your noodle, from the end to the center cut-out, across to the other noodle's center, and out through the end of noodle number 2. (Well. That is probably one of the oddest sentences I've ever written. Probably a picture is a better idea.)
Do the same thing on the other side. Tighten each side so the cup is held snugly between the two noodles. Now, normally, this is where I would break out my hot glue gun, however, I'm skeptical that hot glue will hold up on plastic and foam, in the Oklahoma heat and sun, in water, so I was looking for a different way to keep the boat together. Perhaps a nice squirt of silicone caulking might be an effective way to accomplish this. I will let you know if I try it. Today, I simply tied each piece into a snug square knot. (Remember this from Girl Scouts? "Right over left, and left over right, makes a knot neat, and tidy, and tight.")
Next, you need to add some ballast to keep the boat from tipping. Innovate! Consider all the ways you can think of to add ballast to your boat. One person recommended washers and steel ball bearings, but have you priced washers lately? Plus, metal in the pool? My idea was to make a little parcel full of rocks to hang under the boat. I found a nice rock in my gardening supplies (unfortunately, we don't have a lot of rocks around here that would be suitable, so I used one that had been purchased for use in a flower vase. Tip: don't use sandstone! It'll erode and give your pool a nice sandy bottom.)
Here I'm using a piece of old trampoline netting that was in our trash can this week. You could try a plastic mesh bag from your onions or oranges, too. Weave one of the zip-ties through around the top edge, then cinch it tight.
A little package of rocks.
Trim off the excess fabric at the top. (Really, who's going to know if you do or don't? I just like things to be tidy.) Turn your boat over and put the rock parcel on the bottom of the cup. Wind it through the rope, through the mesh, and zip it closed. Do this on both sides. It'll help hold your cup in place, too. Warning: don't pull the ties TOO tight, or you'll pop your cup right out of the noodles! Whoops!
Step Three - Test and Enjoy!
Check it out! I can put a 32-ounce drink cup (Sonic, anyone?) into my floating cup holder.
Here it is holding my more typical beverage of choice. Note that my beer is wearing its shirt - this cup holder is even big enough for coozies. (I am not a huge Spartan fan, by the way. I just wanted a souvenir from our trip to Michigan State last month for Odyssey of the Mind, and a coozie fit the bill. It makes me smile when I see my beer wearing a Sparty shirt. Our other beer shirts are all from Oklahoma State; GO POKES!)
You can also see the prototype beer boat that I made yesterday, with its clothespin waiting to be clipped to a float. The prototype used a styrofoam coozie that came with the six-pack cooler. It works, but your beer can't be wearing a shirt and still fit in the boat, so I knew I needed a different option.
This weekend, I will give my floating cup holder a real test. If modifications need to be made, I will report back promptly. In the meantime, cheers!
The (future) World Champions departing Stillwater to go to World Finals; missing one teammate.
Tuesday night, my husband and I were having a peaceful pizza buffet at Mazzio's when I was ambushed by five of my ex-students. These girls are now in 8th grade (I had most of them as students from 2nd - 5th grade). Every time I see these girls, they squeal and run to hug me (often
making a much bigger production out of it than is necessary; such are
13-year-old self-confident girls.) This time, though, they saw me
before I saw them, and they snuck across the restaurant (crouching and
crawling) until they suddenly popped up right next to my table. (It
didn't help that I was in the middle of composing a quick text, so I was
completely unaware.) Guess who squealed this time?
For several years, the girls and a few friends have been teammates on an Odyssey of the Mind team. Smart, clever, funny, and fun to be around, these girls are also adept at building, sewing, gluing, and engineering - all skills they've learned while completing solutions each year for OM. Last year, they competed in Problem 2, which is a technical problem. The requirements each year vary.
Some of the "Weird Science" requirements were:
choose a photograph from the NASA website that shows an event or phenomenon on Earth
create and act out an explanation about the strange circumstance that caused the event
depict the location of the event onstage
depict the strange circumstance in a technical fashion
have a team of scientists visit the location and collect samples (using some sort of robotic device)
This team decided that their event would take place under the sea. Their characters were sea animals - and their costumes were unbelievable.
Last May, they competed at World Finals.
They placed FIRST (First!) in both
Long-Term AND Style
and placed 9th overall, an absolutely fantastic
achievement.
Really. First Place at World Finals. Here's the video of their performance:
(Note: OM requires team members to complete every aspect of their solution by themselves. Adults are not allowed to assist in any way. Skills can be taught, but the students must figure out how to apply those skills to the solution themselves, and the team makes all the decisions. Adults are not allowed to give stage directions, either, hence, an OM solution doesn't look anything like a "skit" or "play" you might see in a classroom or at a theatre.)
Can you see why I'm proud? We've had teams participating in OM in Stillwater since the 2005-2006 school year, so our kids really have some great experience. This team's motto was "Good Enough is not World Quality" and they spent hundreds of hours preparing their solution. They totally get it.
Five of the seven team members are back again this year, getting ready to choose and solve one of the five 2013 problems. They'll likely add 2 more team members, which I am excited about, because they'll share their experience and knowledge with less experienced kids. And, it increases my opportunity for hugs!
For more information about OM, go to www.odysseyofthemind.com. A similar program is Destination ImagiNation and we have kids from our club who participate in DI, too. For more information about our local club, visit www.stillwatercreativity.org. A little-understood fact: Individual groups can participate in these programs - you do not have to depend on your school to provide them. If you have creative kids, check it out.
