Odyssey of the Mind 2014

This year our school organized 4 teams to participate in the Odyssey of the Mind tournament.  Ethan was on one of those teams.  His team worked on problem #1 which involved building a vehicle that could move forward and backward using at least two propulsion systems.  In addition to building the vehicle, teams had to create a skit that shows the vehicle in action.  Through all of this, the students are guided by coaches, however the coaches cannot make decisions, or even tell students any ideas for solving the problem.  The students worked in teams of 7 and had to budge, shop, build, EVERYTHING on their own.  The purpose/goal of the problems/tournament is to give kids the opportunity to problem solve, engineer, be creative, organize, all kinds of real life skills.  Ethan stayed busy with this for several months after school working toward the state tournament which was held in Park City. 

The team waiting for their time to start.  They had to put up their set and perform all under 8 minutes.

Setting up the props.

Skit begins

Ethan's character was the Driving Instructor.

Team members.  They did a great job!  Everyone remembered their parts and the vehicle ran as expected.

In addititon to the skit, the teams also had to participate in a Spontaneous problem which is just as it's name.  Each team goes into a room to answer a spontaneous problem and are scored/judged on how creative and unique their answers are.

It was a long day.  

Being an all day event, Ellie was a great supporter of her big brother.  She had a lot of fun at the creativity festival and only began to lose her patience of waiting by the time of the Closing Ceremonies.

Closing Ceremonies:  parade of teams - lots of music and lots of dancing.

Woodruff School is in blue.  This was our school's first year participating and we ended up with one 1st Place team and one 3rd place team (Ethan's)

Since the tournament was at the beginning of Spring Break we made a long weekend of it.  We stayed an extra night in Park City and had fun at the pool and shopping.  The kids had so much fun - Ellie had been counting the days to when we would stay in a hotel.    

We headed over to Scheels for a little shopping. . . . . .

Stayed a 3rd night at Thanksgiving Point and spent more time in the pool. . . . . . . .

and visited the Museum of Ancient History where we learned all about prehistoric creatures.

We have managed to rid ourselves of the dvd players when traveling.  The kids like to have "their own" music to listen to.  Luckily Ellie can just plug in with Ethan and doesn't mind letting him choose the music for them.