Odyssey of the Mind

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Odyssey of the Mind (often also called OotM or OM ) is a creative competition for children, schoolchildren and students. Team members work together over a longer period of time to solve a given task (the long-term task ). They present their solution at a competition during which a spontaneous task has to be solved.

aims

Odyssey of the Mind creates opportunities to solve creative tasks and encourages independent and divergent thinking. The program encourages creativity by challenging teams to solve divergent tasks, i. H. those with more than one solution. By working in teams , participants learn teamwork , appreciation and understanding for others, and that a group can produce more ideas than an individual. You will develop a sense of self-respect and respect for others through preparatory exercises such as brainstorming and role-playing . In solving the problem, the students also develop their manual, artistic, linguistic and technical skills.

Although the ultimate goal of most teams is to present their solution to the problem at an official competition, this is not a requirement for participation. The purpose of the program is to provide students with an exciting learning experience that is challenging and amusing.

Odyssey of the Mind thus promotes a wide range of skills and thus complements the official curricula.

History of origin

Odyssey of the Mind was founded in 1978 by Prof. Dr. Samuel C. Micklus founded in the USA . A program that initially included a few teams of high school and college students from the state of New Jersey turned into an international program in 25 years with teams from schools and universities on all five continents. In more than 30 years, Odyssey of the Mind has reached millions of children and young people around the world. It is the most extensive non-governmental international educational program.

Types of tasks

There are long-term and spontaneous tasks. While the teams can prepare for the presentation of the solution to one of the long-term tasks over several months up to the competition, they only learn about the spontaneous task on site and have to solve it within a few minutes. But they can generally practice solving spontaneous tasks, which is often a lot of fun for them.

Spontaneous

There are three different types of spontaneous tasks.

  1. In spontaneous verbal tasks, the teams have to provide creative comments on a picture, sentence or situation. Ordinary answers are given one point, creative responses three or five points. The team members are not allowed to talk to each other during the solution.
  2. “Hands-on” spontaneous tasks require that the team quickly build something from common materials that meets certain requirements. The team is rated how creative the result is, how well they worked together and how well the requirements are met.
  3. Mixed tasks contain a manual and a verbal component. Often the parts are separate, for example something has to be built first and creative comments are made on it later.

Long term

  1. The vehicle task: The teams have to build a large vehicle (which one team member can drive) or several small vehicles and complete a course. The performance always has a specific theme that the team can work out.
  2. The mixed task: The teams have to build technical devices that meet certain specified requirements. This is built into a play that always has a specific theme. Often times, the performances should be humorous.
  3. The classic task: Each year the teams deal with a historical, literary or art-historical topic. For example, history must be creatively rewritten by inventing alternative explanations for historical events. It may also be that works of art need to be reproduced. A new surprise every year.
  4. The Structural Task: In this task, the teams have to build a structure out of balsa sticks and glue, which is then tested to see how many weights it can hold. The requirements are different every year. The record is over 1000 kg on a 15 gram structure.
  5. The theatrical task: the teams usually have to prove their acting skills. There are fewer restrictions and more options. The creativity is given even more free run.

style

The style is the elaboration of the task solution. Aspects are assessed here that are not required in the long-term task, for example a costume, a dance or a song. Here, too, there are few limits to creativity. The evaluation takes place together with the long-term task.

Competition levels

Competitions are held at regional, national and international levels. The world championships are held every year at a university in the USA. In addition, there has been an annual "Eurofest" since 1993, which takes place every year in a different European country participating in the program.

Odyssey of the Mind Germany eV

Odyssey of the Mind Germany eV is the organization that organizes the program in Germany.

Odyssey of the Mind was brought to Germany by Karl-Ernst Plagemann, in 1991 he put together the first team of students from the Potsdam Humboldt and Helmholtz Schools and led them to the World Championships in Knoxville (Tennessee) in the same year . A year later, Germany International was founded as a binational society of German and US American schools (DoDDS) in Germany and part of the Berlin-Brandenburgische Auslandsgesellschaft eV. Plagemann became the first director and remained so until 2004. After that, until the founding of Odyssey of the Mind Germany, he was honorary director of Germany International.

In 2012, the German activities were transferred to an independent association. The organization of the German final competitions in 2013 was a first test. In the same year, the largest European festival ever held with teams from four continents was held in Brandenburg with almost 1,100 participants. Almost 70 all volunteers were involved in the organization.

The greatest successes of German teams so far were winning a world title by a team from Weinberg-Gymnasium Kleinmachnow in 1996 and winning a "Ranatra Fusca Creativity Award" by a team from Ramstein High School in 1997. At the 2005 World Championships one won Team from the Schiller-Gymnasium Potsdam a second place, in 2007 a team from the Max-Reinhardt-Gymnasium Berlin a third place. Carola Gnadt, board member and leader of the interpreting group at the World Championships, was awarded an “Outstanding Omer” there in 1999. Before that she received an “Outstanding Omer” and “Ranatra Fusca Award” in Troitsk (CIS) in 1992.

Karl-Ernst Plagemann was honored at the 2001 World Championships with the “Spirit of Odyssey of the Mind Award”, the highest award for officials in the program, for his services to spreading the program in Europe.

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