By Janie Martinez

Hoschton, GA - Osborne Middle School's Odyssey of the Mind team won the Georgia State Finals competition held at Columbus State University on April 14 and will now take their engineering, theatrical, and problem-solving skills to the World Finals to be held at Iowa State University, May 23-26. That this is the first year the school has sponsored a team makes the feat even more spectacular.  This year's team members are Samrath Ayinala, Ben Breer, Bailey Martinez, Ian Moore, Kyle Patel, Lucas Pence, and Sebastian Rodriguez.  

Odyssey of the Mind is a problem-solving competition that focuses on creativity and teamwork. Using critical thinking skills and imagination, teams develop solutions to long-term and spontaneous problems. Hundreds of thousands of students from around the world compete for spots to represent their state/country at the World Finals. Over 25 countries including Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Canada, China, Germany, Hungary, India, Italy, Japan, Korea, Lithuania, Malaysia, Mexico, Poland, Russia, Singapore, and the United Kingdom will come together to showcase talented students’ creative minds.

This team chose to compete in the “Ooh-Motional" vehicle category. Working throughout the school year, they designed and built a human-powered vehicle with two unique propulsion systems that demonstrated four human emotions during their eight-minute performance.  Scoring was largely based on creativity, engineering and risk-taking behind the propulsion systems and emotions.  The team accomplished the technical requirement using levers, motors, gears, pulleys, and a unique “propulsion” system which captured the attention of tournament competitors, judges, and spectators alike.

To learn more about the Odyssey team go to www.osborne-odysseyofthemind.com website.