A team from Otisville Elementary School is representing Minisink Valley at the March 5  New York State Odyssey of the Mind Region 5 competition at Orange/Ulster BOCES.

Team members are Liam Frawley, Kayleigh Bartels, Caitlin Moran, Giuliana Coppola, Eisen Jackson, Dylan DeSieno and Owen Hutchital, and are coached by Jenna Colman.

These “creative academic athletes” are presenting Problem 5, “Life is a Circus.”  The problem is explained as: Sometimes life seems like a circus! The team has created a performance about a young person enjoying a regular life in our world who wakes up one day to discover they somehow were transported into a circus world. In the circus world there will be original animals performing unexpected tricks, a clown, circus acts, and a ringmaster that announces the activities. The young person returns to the regular world thinking it was all a dream until they see a mysterious figure that turns out to be from the circus!

Teams of up to seven students compete in five different problems which encompass vehicle, technical, classics, structure and theatrical themes. Each team receives its problem in early October and then proceeds to build, tape, glue, paint and “test run” props and mechanisms to prepare the best solution to the challenge.

Odyssey of the Mind is an international educational program that provides creative problem-solving opportunities for students from kindergarten through college. Team members apply their creativity to solve problems that range from building mechanical devices to presenting their own interpretation of literary classics. They then bring their solutions to competition on the local, state, and World level. Thousands of teams from throughout the U.S. and from about 25 other countries participate in the program.