Year of firsts for Hampton Odyssey of the Mind

This year represents several firsts for Hampton Township School District’s Odyssey of the Mind students.

At the April 9 school board meeting, co-coordinator Colleen Turcsanyi presented an overview of successes by participants in the international problem-solving program.

“This is the first time Hampton has been represented in every problem category at the regional tournament,” she said, with 16 teams overall taking part in the Western Pennsylvania competition, held in March at Keystone Oaks High School.

From the regional event, eight Hampton teams — with students from the high school, middle school and all three elementary schools — advanced to the state tournament on April 6 in Monroe County. There, Wyland Elementary School won the district’s initial Ranatra Fusca Creativity Award, named after a classification of water insect and presented for outstanding creativity.

Another first was a participant in the Hampton program, Jeremiah Bennett, receiving the Western Pennsylvania Odyssey of the Mind Paul H. Dunn Jr. Memorial Scholarship.

One more feat never accomplished previously was the Hampton High School team tackling two separate problems at the state level.

Each year, Odyssey of the Mind develops categories of problems for students to solve in an inventive manner, with the five competition themes for 2023-24 as described by Turcsanyi:

• Drive-In Movie. “Teams had to create a moving vehicle and had to complete a series of tasks, including getting a ticket for the movie, getting a concession-stand item, parking, and becoming part of the movie they were watching.”

• AI Tech-No-Art. “Teams had to create a device that critiques art, using a different signal if art is beautiful or not. And if art critics determine it is not beautiful, the device has to disassemble the art and reassemble it into something that is beautiful.”

• Classics … Opening Night Antics. “Teams had to portray an opening night of a play based on a classic story,” but then had to contend with issues such as set malfunctions and unexpected sound effects.

• Deep Space Structure. Teams built balsa structures that “had to be represented as a character that was discovered and studied by scientists in deep space,” and determined how much weight they could hold.

• Rocking World Detour. “Teams had to create their own rock band, and their rock band had to hit an unexpected detour that threw them off track. And they had to use music to get back on track.”

Four teams of Hampton students in kindergarten through second grade participated in a noncompetitive problem, “The Night Life.”

“They had to create a story about an explorer character who discovers nocturnal creatures, among other things,” Turcsanyi, who is co-coordinator with Lisa Lamb, said.

Sixteen Hampton teams participated in regional tournament, an increase from six in 2023, and the district tied with Upper St. Clair advancing from there to the state competition.

Next is the World Finals, scheduled for May 21-24 at Iowa State University, and the Hampton Township Odyssey of the Mind Association is raising money for students to attend. For more information about the program, visit www.facebook.com/HTSDOOTM.