Odyssey of the Mind
For more than 25 years, Odyssey of the Mind (OM) has cultivated creativity and divergent thinking in students. Students have fun, working on teams, and learning how to solve problems as creatively, yet practically, as possible.
When the teams, holding up to 7 students each, get to the competition, coaches have prepared them for both spontaneous, short-term problems, and a polished presentation of a long-term problem. In fact, the lessons learned in OM are not gained from the actual competition, but from the many hours preparing for it.
Teams and their coaches spend many hours practicing the type of spontaneous problems. These problems typically last from a few to 7 minutes. The coach reads the problem, the team members discuss it for two minutes, and then they spontaneously work together to brainstorm solutions.
With spontaneous problems, anything goes. These problems include an almost limitless number of possibilities, such as giving the students items such as a paper clips, eggs, or kitchen gadgets, and asking the team to come up with as many uses for the items as possible. Or it could involve a word problem, where teams have to invent a word, define it, and then use it in as many sentences as possible. Or it could be a building project, such as building something with a deck of cards, or toothpicks, that can hold as much weight as possible.
Throughout the year as the team prepares for the competition, the coach brings a few spontaneous problems to each meeting, always different and challenging, and has the students practice coming up with different solutions. This is one way to encourage and nurture divergent thinking skills, and also provides more benefits and creativity skills training than any other aspect of the program.
Teams also select a long-term problem to solve, and they work for several months putting together a performance of the solution. These problems range from technical problems, such as building structures that hold a certain amount of weight, or designing vehicles that run only on mousetraps, or are powered by a single light bulb. There are also long-term problems that focus more on the arts, such as writing and performing a story that includes a famous literary character and/or artist, and includes requirements for scenery changes, costumes, set design, and other details.
The long-term problems also require “Style” criteria. This teaches students to think not only of simply solving the problem, but solving a problem with the best, enhanced solution.
Teams present their long-term solutions to judges at local and state competitions, and along with scores from the spontaneous, short-term problems, are given a total score. Some teams go on to showcase their creativity at the annual World Finals.
For more information see Odyssey of the Mind.