Gatton Academy Students Take Top Honors at Odyssey of the Mind Tournament

A team of Gatton Academy students took top honors at the 2010 Odyssey of the Mind Western Regional tournament.

Odyssey of the Mind (OotM) is an international educational program that provides creative problem-solving opportunities for students from kindergarten through college. Team members apply their creativity to solve problems that range from building mechanical devices to presenting their own interpretation of literary classics. They then bring their solutions to competition on the local, state, and World level. Thousands of teams from throughout the U.S. and from about 25 other countries participate in the program.

Team members included: Anthony Bates, Phillip Butler, Kayla Smith, Taylor Doss, Kaitlin Oliver, May Stulz, and Sydney Combs.

Amanda Beers, a WKU senior and sponsor for the OotM team, explained that the competition is the fit fit for students who attend the Gatton Academy.

“Odyssey is a great compliment to the curriculum offered at the Academy, because it allows students to explore and develop different various aspects of their potential,” Beers said. “It allows students to work on testing and implementing their own designs, instead of being restricted to meeting the criteria set forth to earn a grade on a class project.“

There are three separate aspects of an Odyssey tournament. For the long-term portion teams select one of five problems, ranging from building a vehicle to performance based problems, and work on solving

this problem for several months leading up to their first competition. The style portion of competition allows the team to choose any item that is not scored in long-term to be judged. In the spontaneous element of competition teams are given a problem the day of competition and required to solve it within a specified time frame.

“I feel like this club really brings people from the Academy together and lets us work together on something that uses our full imagination,” added Taylor Doss (Christian ’10).

Though the Academy’s curriculum focuses on math and science, Kayla Smith (Grant ’10) sees Odyssey as a way to embrace a different side of her academic personality.

“It was a very unique experience for me to have the chance to be creative and artistic at the Academy,” Smith said.

After earning first place in their division at the Western Regional the team will now advance to the State Tournament. This year’s state tournament will be held at Eastern Kentucky University on March 27th.

Should the Academy team place in the top two in their division at this upcoming tournament, they will advance to the World Finals tournament.

“I am extremely proud of what the team has been able to accomplish thus far,” Beers added. “More importantly, I am proud to say that no matter what place they get at the state tournament they will continue to be amazing ambassadors of the Academy.”

For more information, contact Corey Alderdice at (270) 745-6565.

extracurricular, Kayla Smith, Odyssey of the Mind, Spring 2010, Taylor Doss