Students compete in brain games
By Kirsten Waters
Special to The Union
» More from Kirsten Waters
special To The Union
12:01 a.m. PT May 26, 2007
Three teams of south county students are competing in brain-power and creativity contests, and the winners will be announced tonight.
Two teams from Bear River High School competed this week, one in the Odyssey of the Mind World Finals in Michigan and the other at the Destination ImagiNation Global Finals in Tennessee.
A team from Magnolia Intermediate School also competed in the 28th annual Odyssey of the Mind World Finals.
They competed against teams from all around the world after training for months and passing through regional and state contests.
Both Odyssey of the Mind and Destination Imagination are problem-solving competitions where kids of all ages show their ability to think on their feet and come up with creative solutions to problems posed to them.
These problems include a six-to-eight minute skit and often include a technical element which demonstrates engineering skills. Teams are scored on their ability to use all elements of their specific problems in their skit.
After the skit, teams go on to rounds in which they are given a verbal or hands-on challenge to solve, usually in less than 10 minutes.
Bear River's Odyssey of the Mind team consists of Amara Richardson, Logan Kaper, Kenzi Kaper, Kerri Lohse, Andrew Bergman and Matt Schaefer. They are competing at Michigan State University in East Lansing.
Bear River's Destination ImagiNation team consists of Dan Nicholls, Jocelyn Bayne, Jacque Nat, Katie deLaveaga, Alex Hendriksen and Vincent Sherman. They are competing in Knoxville.
Magnolia's Odyssey of the Mind team members are Morgan Bachus, Morgan Hanna, Kyle Mandrup, Bill Otwell, Samantha Solomon and Sara Wilson.
Each of the Bear River students already has competed in global competitions in previous years. Bear River's team won first place last year in the Destination ImagiNation World Finals, where they went up against the 70 top teams in the world.
To find out who the winners are, go to www.odysseyof themind.com/wf2007 for Odyssey of the Mind and www.globalfinals.org for Destination ImagiNation.
ooo
Kirsten Waters is a sophomore at Bear River High School. She competed in DestiNation Imagination competitions in 2006, when the Bear River team took first place in global finals. Messages for her can be left at trinak@theunion.com or 477-4230.
