M-W middle school teams shine at OM state competition

By Nancy Kriz
CENTRAL VALLEY — Two teams representing Monroe-Woodbury Middle School are advancing to Odyssey of the Mind (OM) world competition in May at Iowa State University following last weekend's state competition at SUNY Binghamton, hoping to become the world's best in creative, "out of the box" problem-solving.

Winning first place in its division for "Aesop Gone Viral" is Team Hutter, for its response the problem focusing on Aesop's fables.
The team portrayed a fable and its moral as going viral throughout the community and beyond. The performance was set in a past era and included a narrator character, an artistic representation of the fable's moral, and a character that made a wrong conclusion about the moral and was corrected.
Team members are Camron Adams, Simran Arneja, Aiden Berges, Alexi Berges, Jack Kralik, Alyssa Kamara and Alessandra O’Day with Jessica Hutter as coach. It scored 337.46 out of a possible 350 points.
Team McInerney, the second middle school team, focused on a problem called "Something Fishy."
It earned a third place ranking for its performance, which included a fisher character working from a designated area to "catch" three different objects that are outside of that area. The catch had to be caught on the move and included something expected, something unexpected and a new discovery.
The performance also included a change of weather and a humorous character who portrayed a potential catch and avoided being caught by the fisher.
Team members are Meghan Buckley, Colin Davidson, Livia Davidson, Elena Kelbley, Fiona Leitner, Colin McHugh and Brian Whitfield with Joanne McInerney as coach. It earned 315.44 out of 350 points.
However, Team McInerney also won the Ranatra Fusca Creativity Award, which is OM's highest and most coveted award, given to acknowledge extreme creativity and ingenuity. This award represents the essence of OM, and is presented to teams or individuals who exhibit exceptional creativity, either through some aspect of their problem solution, or an extraordinary idea beyond the problem solution. A successful problem solution is not a criterion for winning the award; rather, the award is a way to acknowledge and encourage creative thinking and risk-taking.
Teams who earn a Ranatra Fusca Creativity Award are eligible to advance to the next level of competition, regardless of where they place in the tournament, and Team McInerney will also compete in world competition as a result.
Ranatra Fusca is the term for a classification of water insect. Although this may seem a remote association to creative thinking, the name has a special meaning for OMers.
OM was born from a college class taught by its founder, Dr. Sam Micklus, where he assigned students to create a flotation device to transport them across a pond. One student designed a water strider-like contraption.
The device did not solve the problem because of its inability to maintain proper balance.
However, if given the time and opportunity to “go back to the drawing board,” the student would have been able to correct this and cross the pond.
Even though the device did not work properly, the idea was exceptionally creative.
"It is such a joy to watch these creative thinkers grow into real world problem solvers," said Debra Garling, the district's OM coordinator and director of the district's gifted/talented program. "Getting bright minds to cooperate on a uniformed approach to attacking an Odyssey problem can often be an arduous task. The Monroe-Woodbury OMers' abilities to collaborate so successfully with their six other team members never seizes to amaze me."
These two team were part of a four team Monroe-Woodbury contingent participating in the 37th annual state competition.
The high school team, which performed the "Aesop Gone Viral" problem in its division, earned fifth place with a total score of 267.46 out of 350 points.
The North Main Elementary team, which performed "Something Fishy" in its division, earned a total of 294.79 out of 350 points.
"Year after year, I am continually impressed by the variety of their solutions and the way they bounce ideas off one another in an attempt to perfect their designs," added Garling. "This year, I was blown away by the exceptional creativity and risk-taking involved in the creation of their sets, costumes and contraptions. In addition, their continued success, year after year, speaks volumes about the creativity, perseverance, and dedication of the Monroe-Woodbury coaching staff."
The two middle school teams will, represent Monroe-Woodbury in the only world competition the district participates in, May 24 to 29 in Ames, Iowa.