Thursday, March 28, 2024

CHS Hosts Odyssey of the Mind Competition

Carroll ISD will be hosting the North Texas Odyssey of the Mind Regional Tournament, to be held at Carroll High School on Saturday, Feb. 22.This will be the largest Regional Tournament in the Carroll ISD area in years. Carroll ISD teams will represent a record 22 (from every CISD campus) of the 74 teams competing.

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.Last year, 4 of 17 Carroll ISD teams, representing RES, WGES, DMS and CHS, advanced to World Finals and 3 of those teams placed in the Top Ten in the World.

North Texas Odyssey of the Mind Regional Tournament Director, Cynthia Featherston, CISD Quest Director, is working hard to make this a great experience for the 500-600 Odyssey of the Mind team members who have been working hard all year and will converge on CHS to compete at the highest level of creativity. With over 120 Carroll kids competing, the entire Carroll ISD and Southlake community is welcome to attend the tournament. Click here to view tournament schedule.

Carroll OM Teams Advance to State Tournament

The 2013 North Texas Regional Tournament of Odyssey of the Mind was held on Saturday, March 2nd in Tyler. 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. The solutions must be created, designed, built and presented by only the 7 children on the team. No outside assistance is allowed.

Teams have been working since the start of the school year to solve one of 5 problems distributed internationally by Odyssey of the Mind. They compete within their age division, by presenting an 8 minute long term solution as well as competing in “spontaneous” problem. They are judged on the creativity of their solution along with the quality of their overall presentation. This year, 17 teams from Carroll, representing 9 campuses, competed along with over 53 teams for the opportunity to advance to the State Tournament in Houston on April 13. The 12 Carroll teams that are heading to Houston are:

Vehicular Problem
Rockenbaugh Elementary Team coached by Scot Marvel, 1st Place, Div 1
Rockenbaugh Elementary Team coached by Margaret Rodgers and Tim Sabo, 2nd Place, Div1
Dawson Middle School coached by Ann Dachniwsky and Brady Warner, 1st Place, Div 2
Durham Intermediate School coached by Joan Krikau and Jon Larimer, 3rd Place, Div 2

Technical Problem
Eubanks Intermediate Team coached by Michelle Moore and Keith Buckley, 1st Place, Div 1
Eubanks Intermediate Team coached by Brady Warner, 1st Place, Div 2
Carroll High School coached by Shauna Newman and Carl Anderson, 1st Place, Div 3

Classics Problem
Rockenbaugh Elementary Team coached by Cameron Bryan, 1st Place, Div 1
Eubanks Intermediate Team coached by Kathy Marshall and Margaret Weinberg, 3rd Place, Div 2

Structure Problem
Rockenbaugh Elementary Team coached by Brandy Strange and Ruth Belleville, 1st Place, Div 1
Carroll Middle School coached by Inna Dietrich, 2nd Place, Div 2

Drama Problem
Walnut Grove Elementary Team coached by Leah Swanson and Scot Bates, 1st Place, Div 1

The Carroll Independent School District also honored long-time coach, CISD liaison, and Tournament Director Cynthia Featherston with an OMer Award which is given to a team or individual who demonstrate through personal action the values of encouragement, self-respect, development of cooperation and understanding of others. Cynthia Featherston is the CISD Elementary School Quest Coordinator and teaches at Rockenbaugh Elementary School and until this year coached a highly successful OM team for ten years.

The Walnut Grove Elementary team coached by Leah Swanson and Scot Bates won a team OMer award for showing extreme teamwork. The night before the regionals competition their normal-odd-o-meter broke and the morning of the competition the team had to make a last minute fix that they learned about from Googling how to solder.

The Carroll High School Team received the coveted Renatra Frusca Creativity Award. This award is presented to teams or individuals who exhibit exceptional creativity through one aspect of their solution or an extraordinary idea beyond the problem solution. This is the 3rd year in a row that the High School team has been presented with this award.

Click here for a complete list of teams. Click here to learn more about Odyssey of the Mind.

A slideshow of photos taken at the regional event is featured below.