Countryside Takes 2nd at World Competition
Posted June 8, 2008
(CHAMPAIGN, IL) June 8, 2008 – Countryside School placed 2nd at the 29th annual Odyssey of the Mind World Finals on June 3 at the University of Maryland, College Park. Countryside sent 13 middle schoolers on two teams, each team competing in a different problem.
The team competing in "The Eccentrics" problem were Julie Strauss and Nealay Kalita of Champaign, Alex Mestre of Urbana, Brianna Lillyman of Mahomet, Sonya Kumpuckal of Danville, and Hannah Piester of Ivesdale. After performing well in their long-term problem and style competitions, this team took 1st place in spontaneous competition, putting them in 2nd place and winning the silver medal for their problem and division.
Also competing were David Morrow, Will Theriac, Natalie Bina, Madelyn Gunn, Juliana Trach and Anna Kanfer of Champaign and Chas Newman of Savoy. These students competed in the classics problem, "The Wonderful Muses."
Odyssey of the Mind invited Countryside's teams to compete because they finished in 1st and 2nd places in their respective problems at state competition held in Belleville, Illinois on April 12th. This is the 3rd consecutive year that Countryside School has sent teams to the Odyssey World Finals.
Countryside’s two teams competed against 70 and 56 other middle school teams respectively from around the United States and other countries including Singapore, South Korea, Poland, Germany, Canada, and Kazakhstan.
“Both teams have been working very hard practicing and perfecting the solutions to their problems. These students have spent time after school and given up lunch recesses to work on Odyssey of the Mind,” says Lois Wilken, coach for Countryside’s Odyssey of the Mind teams.
Odyssey of the Mind is a creative problem-solving program which encourages students to use creative thinking, utilize teamwork and stay within a budget to solve problems. The problems can be performance-based or technical. Teams are scored in 3 categories: a long-term problem, style, and spontaneous competition. Solutions are judged on creativity and risk-taking.
