The Pennington School’s Odyssey of the Mind teams placed first and third in the Coastal Plains Regional Tournament, which tested the students problem solving skills.
Odyssey of the Mind is an international educational program that provides creative problem solving opportunities for students from kindergarten through college, according to the New Jersey Odyssey of the Mind website.
“On March 2, in Columbus, N.J., for the eighth year in a row, the school’s first-place team will advance to state finals on April 6,” Pennington School spokeswoman Julia Corrigan said.
The state final competition on April 6 will be held at Ewing High School, which is located at 900 Parkway Ave. in Ewing.
She said team members worked together to solve problems that ranged from building mechanical devices to presenting their own interpretation of literary classics.
“The Pennington School took home first place with a perfect score in the “OMer to the Rescue Again” and third place in “Hide In Plain Sight”,” Corrigan said.
According to school officials, in the ‘OMer to the Rescue Again’ competition, team members traveled in an original team-made vehicle to complete tasks.
“To complete the tasks, the students had to perform an original skit that included characters and special effects, with an emphasis on running and testing of the vehicle. In the second problem, the team created their own technical device using engineering skills,” she said.
The Pennington Middle School teams began their work on the problems in 2018.
“To prepare for the competition, the students built a ride-on vehicle, designed and crafted costumes, wrote scripts, made a homemade vacuum, sound maker, LED light circuit, and heat chamber, and designed and painted backdrops,” Corrigan said.
The top two places in each problem and division advance to the state finals.
Following that
competition, the top two teams from each problem and division advance to the Odyssey of the Mind World Finals at Michigan State University for the week of May 22.
