Niwot Elementary's Odyssey of the Mind team goes to world competition

Much of what students learn in school is something called "crystalline knowledge," or knowledge that is based on memorization of previously learned facts. While some classes, like math, might teach some degree of problem solving--think back to those pesky train problems--students arguably do not have the opportunity to frequently exercise their problem-solving skills.

With this in mind, in 1978, two college students in New Jersey founded the first "Olympics of the Mind." It brought together students from 26 New Jersey schools to solve various problems and award the victors for the most creative solution.

Now, the program is international and called Odyssey of the Mind (OoTM). Colorado has had various teams participate in the program since 1983, with Niwot Elementary being one of those schools.

Niwot Elementary's 2020 team had six students and their task was to build three vehicles that could carry cargo to a reaction area. However, the other element of this "problem," was to create a skit in which there was a group of nonbelievers who didn't believe something dire--as imagined by the kids--would happen. But another group of characters did believe in the dire event and it was up to them to save the world.

"It's somewhat timely," remarked coach Heather Rutherford, a mom and Niwot attorney.

Her team, which was made up of some students who previously competed in the program, started practicing weekly midway through the Fall 2019 semester. Given that some of the students already had worked together, this team-building time in the fall was crucial because it was the foundation for a solid team bond.

"I think one of the exciting parts, before the shutdown, when the kids were building the vehicles and props together, that's when the teamwork really started to gel," Rutherford said.

But of course, come the springtime, the whole team--and program--dynamic changed.

Under normal circumstances, OoTM students have the opportunity to compete at up to three levels of competition: regionals, state and worlds. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent community shut-downs, many teams were not able to compete at any level at all.

With the knowledge of the effort that students, coaches, and volunteers had already put into the program, OoTM made the decision to open up a virtual-world competition to all teams, provided the teams submitted a video and followed specific rules, such as that the teams could only have one camera, it couldn't be moved, and the footage couldn't be edited.

"I polled the Niwot Elementary team and they were up for the challenge," said Rutherford. "After a couple of zoom calls to get organized and make changes to script, props, etcetera, we had a marathon zoom session to practice and record the performance, with each of the five kids at his or her own house."

She described how it was fascinating to see how the students worked within these new boundaries, trying to adapt their old material. For example, at one point in the original script, one character pushes another, the students had to coordinate to figure out how to "push" each other through the Zoom screens and look continuous while doing so.

Another part of the competition is called a "spontaneous problem." Unlike with the vehicle task which is published in advance, the spontaneous problem is presented to participants on the day of competition and the kids must think of the most creative solution possible on the spot. Niwot Elementary's spontaneous problem was to come up with 25 creative responses to the question, "What would you not want to find in your bedroom?" and they only had 25 minutes to complete the task. The team did so well that their score was comparable to some of the top teams in the competition.

"The team did a great job changing to meet the new reality and understanding that for this task, done was better than perfect," Rutherford said.