Galway Central School District Odyssey of the Mind is once again headed to the state tournament in Syracuse on April 13.
Galway has been competing at higher levels of Odyssey of the Mind for decades. The school district has trophies on display from the 1990s to present day. But, for the first time, Galway will head to the state-level competition with a team from each age group.
“Odyssey of the Mind teaches students how to develop and use their natural creativity to become problem-solvers,” according to the organization website.
Students are broken up into five divisions. Kindergarten through second grade is known as Primary, grades three through five are Division 1, sixth through eighth grade is Division 2, ninth through 12th is Division 3, and Division 4 is for college students and military members, who must have a high school diploma or its equivalent.
A team’s division is determined by its oldest member, meaning younger students can participate on teams above their age group.
Seniors Shamus Evans and Aidan Reekie-Mell have participated in Odyssey of the Mind together since they were in kindergarten.
“It’s a competition based on critical thinking,” said Reekie-Mell. “The root of it all is to have a problem and have a team of up to seven kids come up with a creative solution to said problem. Every year, we’re given a list of six different problems to choose from, and there’s a panel of judges who score it based on certain criteria.”
“Teams spend weeks or months, at their own pace, working together and creating solutions to long-term problems,” the organization website says. “The long-term problems are designed for vehicle, technical, classical art and literature, structure, performance and primary categories.
“Team members come up with all the ideas for their solution and do all the work themselves. Coaches may help teach skills and educate the team on ways of approaching the problem and of evaluating their solution, but will not solve the problem for the team.”
Over the years, everyone figures out what things they are good at, Reekie-Mell said. He said everyone on the team has a role in the competition, like how he created a scale model of the Statue of Liberty as part of the team’s work and others on the team worked to write the script.
“It genuinely is so much fun,” Reekie-Mell said. “I love performing and being up on stage. You’re making costumes, performing, doing art, hanging out with friends, writing, writing jokes, if you’re not having fun while you’re doing it — honestly — you’re doing something wrong.”
Students build props, write skits, problem-solve, work together and more. Teams receive scores based on their long-term and spontaneous problem- solving abilities and solutions. During the spontaneous part of the competition, teams are sent into a room with a question, Evans said. The goal is to answer the question as creatively as possible.
“We’re all in high school, and we all have crazy-busy schedules,” Evans said, “so the amount that we are able to meet as a team is very limited. This year, I think we were all only able to meet three times before the competition. With Division 3 work, a lot of it is individual stuff. We meet, we assign who is going to do what, and then we all bring it together and start preparing and performing a script. With the younger divisions, who can meet more often, they’ll get together and all work on props.”
The Division 3 team also won an OMER award — named for the Odyssey of the Mind raccoon mascot — for sticking together year after year and being excellent role models for the younger teams in the district. The award recognizes individuals or teams who demonstrate outstanding sportsmanship, exemplary behavior, or exceptional talent. The team represented Galway at the World Finals last year in Lansing Michigan, and earned first place for the long-term problem and fourth place overall.
In April, the group will compete against 18 other teams. The top three advance to the World Finals.
Fourth grader Avery Pasieka said Odyssey of the Mind is a fun activity he enjoys participating in every year.
“Some of my favorite things about it are getting to hang out with my friends,” Pasieka said. “Me and the kids on my team, we call ourselves ‘super nerds.’ We’re kind of just the weird smart kids, and we’re all great friends. I like that. I really like traveling to the tournaments and I also like acting, so it’s pretty great because I get to act as something me and my friends came up with ourselves.”
This year, Pasieka is competing in Division 2 for the first time on a team that includes middle school students, like his brother Henry.
“It’s a little more difficult in Division 2, but we did well at regionals because we got a perfect score,” Avery Pasieka said. “For our problem and our division, we had the highest scores.”