Jun 27, 2014 3 min read

A team of creative fifth-graders from Boyce Middle School in Upper St. Clair represented their school and state at the Odyssey of the Mind World Finals held May 28-31 at Iowa State University. Team members Christian Chiu, Declan Gessel, Brianna Lin, Joseph Markovitz, Max Murtough, Samantha (Sammie) Seewald and Constantine Tripodes worked together for eight months problem-solving, brainstorming and collaborating on an eight-minute performance that took them all the way to the World Finals, where they competed against 58 other teams in their division and earned the distinction of fifth place with honorable mention.

Odyssey of the Mind is the world’s largest creative problem-solving program for students in kindergarten through college. Students involved in Odyssey of the Mind apply their creativity to solve one of five problems that range from building mechanical devices to presenting their own interpretation of literary classics. They bring their solutions to competition on the local, state and world level where they are judged on creativity and risk-taking. Thousands of teams from the U.S. and abroad participate in the program, learning the value of brainstorming and teamwork, and developing life-long problem solving skills.

The team from Boyce chose the performance problem, “Seeing is Believing.” In this problem, they were required to create and present an original performance about a community that feels threatened by something in a location it has never visited. They also had to devise a creative method to select a traveler to visit and explore the location, and send a message home to convince the community that there was nothing to fear.

Their “solution” was a humorous and quick-witted story about a group of kindergarten students who feel threatened when they hear that a local exhibit of paintings that “speak” to people will be coming to their school. With a classroom contest that requires the bravest student to touch Van Gogh’s ear, they send Peblo Picasso (the fictitious grandson of Pablo) to stop the paintings from coming. After a ride on the classroom pet Andy Warthog, Peblo learns what it really means when painting “speak” to people and sends his message home via TV broadcast.

Art was an inspiration and a theme for the team from the start.

“The kids did a lot of research,” said Laura Murtough, who helped coach the team alongside Stacey Seewald and Meridith Markovitz. “They studied Seurat, Munch, Warhol, Van Gogh and – the artist whose work may have inspired them most – Picasso. They thought Picasso’s cubism period produced paintings that might seem scary to a 5-year-old – especially if they started speaking!” That premise helped create an entertaining and unique tale.

The team’s performance produced a first place win at the Odyssey of the Mind Regional Tournament at Moon Area Schools in Moon Township in March. From there, they advanced to the State Tournament in Berwick, Pa., in April where they took home first place again. That win qualified them to compete at the Odyssey World Finals Competition. At this level, they joined 836 teams from 35 states and 15 countries including China, South Korea, India, Russia, Poland, Singapore and Mexico. Teams performed creative solutions and competed against others in their age bracket. Opening and closing ceremonies were attended by around 15,000 people.

For more information about Odyssey of the Mind, visit www.wpaodyssey.org. To learn about Odyssey of the Mind in Upper St. Clair and its exciting summer Ingenuity Camp, visit www.uscootm.com.