Ooh-Motional Vehicle, Div. I
State Street Elementary School, Team A – 4th place
Coaches: Kim Bolton and Michelle Senn.
Team members: Sarah Bailey, Jordan Senn, , Evan Swigonski, Bradley Bolton, Nicholas Hernandez, Shane Rutledge and Hannah Boyer.
To Be or Not To Be, Div. I
State Street Elementary School, Team A – 11th place,
Coach: Chris Molinari.
Team members: Solomon Landsberg, Emma Keady, Morgan Dodds, Nicole Bonocore, Hannah Blowers, Cecelia Marrinan and Noah Smith.
You Make the Call, Div. I
State Street Elementary School, Team A – 5th place
Coach: Nancy DeRosa.
Team members: Nicole DeRosa, LB Burkhardt, Cynthia Keller, Matheu Campbell, Gavin Cheney, Levi Carvalho and Justin Wolford.
To Be or Not To Be, Div. III
Skaneateles High School – 14th place
Coaches: Rob Davenport and Randy Elliott.
Steven Janack, Mick Elliott, Raenah Campbell, Kayla Ramsden, Glyn Davenport, Allison Lambdin and Jonathan Mecomber.
Odyssey Angels, Div. III
Skaneateles High School – 8th place
Coach: Becky Muir.
Team members: Morel Malcolm, Shannon O’Brien, Victoria Field, Maria Schillace and Sarah Tomlinson.
Two Skaneateles teams — one from State Street Elementary School and one from Skaneateles High School — finished at the top of their divisions at the recent Odyssey of the Mind state competition and will head to the OOTM World Competition at Iowa State University at the end of May.
Skaneateles sent a total of six teams to compete in the OOTM state competition this past Saturday, March 31, at Binghamton University.
“I am very proud of all of our students who performed at the NYS tournament. It was an amazing day of very creative solutions and tremendous teamwork,” said Kelley McQuiggan, Skaneateles teacher and coordinator of the district’s OOTM program.
Odyssey of the Mind is an international educational program in which students in grades four to 12 work in teams to come up with creative ways to solve problems. Teams work on their skits, props and scenery for their solutions from fall through spring.
At the state championship, the Skaneateles High School team placed first in the Division III “Ooh-Motional Vehicle” problem, which sends them to the World Championships in May. The team also was named the winner of the Ranatra Fusca award, which is the highest creative award in OOTM.
The “Ooh-Motional Vehicle” problem requires teams to design, build, and drive a vehicle that will travel a course where it will encounter three different situations. The vehicle will display a different human emotion for each encounter and one will cause it to travel in reverse. The team must create a theme for the presentation that incorporates the vehicle and the different emotions. The emphases must be on the technical risk-taking and creativity of the vehicle’s engineering for travel and change of emotional appearance.
The team is coached by Chandler Dickinson; team members are Thomas Andrews, Hunter Dickinson, Carter Dickinson, Morel Malcolm, Finan Malcolm and Dylan Baker.
The State Street Elementary School Team A placed second at the state competition for the Division I “Odyssey Angels” problem, which allows them to compete in the World Championships as well.
In the “Odyssey Angels” problem, the team must create and present a performance where a group of students travel throughout one or more team-created places where they encounter negative situations. These “Odyssey Angels” change what they find and turn them into positive situations. On their journey, they help two individuals with different problems and help save an entire community from a bad situation. One Odyssey Angel cannot speak, and another has a special team-created power.
The team is coached by Heather Buff and Mary Whirtley; team members are Daniella Erbes, Alex Flannagan, Jack Whirtley, Ivy Carter, Spencer Mack, Magan Buff and Maeve Canty.
During this week, OOTM coordinators and coaches will meet with team members and parents to discuss fundraising to allow the two teams to travel to Iowa to compete.
Jason Emerson is editor of the Skaneateles Press. He can be reached at [email protected].
