David S. Read

This was the first year that Sarah and Michael were on separate teams.  Sarah and her team chose to do this year’s classics problem, Discovered Treasures, while Michael and his team chose this year’s technical/performance problem, Return to The Gift of Flight.  The older team, being high-schoolers, competed in Division III.  Michael and his teammates were in Division II.

The  teams worked hard.  Lisa coached both teams so she had twice the fun from previous years.  The house also contained twice the cardboard and other assorted paraphernalia as usual.  As the year progressed it was clear that the two problems required very different strategies in terms of planning and execution.

The technical problem took a lot of brain power to resolve the challenges posed.  In this case the problem required 6 aircraft to fly specific “missions” using various sources of propulsion.  The middle-school (O’Rourke) team’s solutions were creative and met the demands for most of the flights.  The problem also involved a performance aspect which they interweaved nicely into their technical solution.

The high-school team always enjoys a performance problem and they certainly created a fantastic script and set.  The challenges in this problem included the requirement to use two different theatrical styles as well as to include two different artifacts in the storyline.  The details within their set and the crafting of their story were great.  Their solution involved a lot of coordination between actors and it was clear that they had practiced hard to create the tight and solid result.

Both teams finished second for their respective division and problem.  For a region with a lot of fine and established teams this is a testament to these teams’ creativity and hard work.  Each is already looking forward to seeing next year’s problem synopses as soon as possible!

Beyond these two Burnt Hills teams, a second Burnt Hills high-school team was also competing and they finished first and are going onto the New York State competition later in March!  I congratulate them wish them the best of luck at states! Also, the Burnt Hills team from Stevens Elementary finished in second place!  Congratulation to them as well!

I’ll post the video of our two teams once the worlds competitions end in May.

Tags: creativity, education, Family, Odyssey of the Mind, OotM

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