Odyssey of the Mind began as a pilot program this year with Mr. Andrew Dressel, father of sixth grader Hamilton Dressel ’29, as our school’s facilitator. W+H entered two teams into the regional competition, held on Saturday, February 25.
The seventh grade team of Rehan Ali ’28, Japjeev Singh ’28, Joshua Simeonidis ’28, Joy Patel ’28 and Arshi Goel ’28 captured first place and will move on to the state competition in Princeton on April 1. W+H sixth graders Hamilton Dressel ’29, Arika Shah ’29, Akshay Shah ’29, Samyak Kumar ’29, Yash Jain ’29 and Alex Zhang ’29 also competed in their first Odyssey of the Mind event.
Odyssey of the Mind is an international educational program that provides creative problem-solving opportunities for students from Kindergarten through college. It is designed to encourage creative thinking, teamwork, and innovation through open-ended challenges that require students to apply their knowledge, creativity, and problem-solving skills to solve complex problems.
Odyssey of the Mind challenges are divided into five categories: Vehicle, Technical, Classics, Structure, and Performance. Each challenge has a specific theme and requires teams of up to seven students to solve a long-term problem and present their solution in a creative and imaginative way. The winning team of W+H seventh graders created a device that performed tasks including raising a flag and ringing a bell.
All W+H students who participated enjoyed the opportunity to showcase their creativity and problem-solving skills to a wider audience. Odyssey of the Mind promotes creativity, teamwork, and innovation, providing students with a valuable learning experience that can help them succeed in school and beyond.