Six North Penn School District Odyssey of the Mind teams represented North Penn and our community proudly at the Odyssey of the Mind PA State competition. Montgomery Elementary School, Nash Elementary School, North Wales Elementary School, Walton Farm Elementary School, Pennbrook Middle School and North Penn High School competed at the state competition and were up against tough competition. Only two of the six teams had ever competed on the state level before.
North Penn High School Team-Headed to World Finals in Michigan!
The North Penn High School team placed first and is ranked as state champions in the technical problem titled “The Email Must Go Through”. For this particular competition, the team was challenged to write a skit and incorporate technical elements to represent a network server which delivered email to three different places, including one ‘offbeat’ location. The technical elements included three team-built mechanical vehicles, one of which walked a wall to deposit email in the network server. Once there, the email was sorted; the team used a Basic Stamp micro-controller to identify the email by color so that it could be delivered to the appropriate destination. Surrounding these complex and innovative technical elements was a humorous skit about a band auditioning for new members. In the true spirit of creative thinking, the characters were birds; Lady GaGoose, Jimmy Hendrix, Blue Jay Z, Talon Swift, Ozzie OzBird, Doveo and Chet, an offbeat parrot. The email was represented by colorful bird eggs, one with an attachment of a team-created, ‘3D’ album cover.
This group of 11th, 10th and 9th graders worked tirelessly for months to present this highly technical and very entertaining skit. At competition, they represented North Penn High School with pride and brought accolades to their team and their school. The high school team will travel to the World Finals at Michigan State University in May!
Although they did not win a spot in the World Finals, the teams from Montgomery, Nash, North Wales and Walton Farm Elementary Schools and Pennbrook Middle School also worked tirelessly all year on their creative problem solving and look forward to competing again next year.
For more info, please contact North Penn Odyssey of the Mind coordinator Joanne Wiernusz at wiernujs@npenn.org.
We Are Supported By:
