Goshen’s Odyssey of the Mind teams make our community proud with their passion for creatively solving problems with team work.
The students and coaches involved in Odyssey of the Mind have been working together since September, so attending the World Finals at the end of the school year is an accomplishment in and of itself. For Team Seligman and Team Schmidt, representing Goshen in Worlds was the culmination of the hard work each team member dedicated to Odyssey of the Mind for months.
Team Schmidt earned their spot in Worlds after their performance at States; finishing in first place in the long term problem and second place in Division 2, Problem 3. The trip was the first time anyone on the team had been to Worlds. Considering the hard work the team has put in since early in the school year, it is hardly a surprise.
For Brooke Florio, Worlds was a realistic goal from the start. “I had the goal of going to Worlds in mind,” Brooke said. “As we progressed throughout the time before regionals, I thought it was definitely something my team could accomplish.”
The path to Worlds goes through Regionals first, then States. Team Schmidt finished first in Regionals, earning their trip to States. “We all started crying. It was a really big celebration,” Marissa Monteiro said about Regionals. From there, the team was off to Syracuse.
First and second place teams move onto Worlds at the State tournament. Team Schmidt finished three points shy of the top program in the spontaneous challenge, earning them second place, and a trip to Worlds in the process.
The team chose Long Term Problem 3 at Worlds: a performance that odysseyofthemind.com explains is “an original chef character that is inspired by fictional literary characters and events.” For this problem, Team Schmidt turned to The Time Machine by H.G. Wells, where the team had no problem developing content for their script. “We actually made an extremely long script, so we had to keep cutting it down,” Marissa said. “But after we got that down, we knew that the script was perfect.”
“The fun part is the creative process of really throwing everything at the wall and seeing what sticks,” Coach Schmidt said about the script writing process.
As part of the performance, the team created a time machine. “We used it as a table, and we were able to make the tabletop come off so we can become a time machine that we would be able to go through,” Brooke said. The team incorporated multiple roles for some performers, requiring costume changes while on stage as well.
In the end, Team Schmidt gave it their all at Worlds, and ended up finishing in fourth place.
Looking back on their experience in their first trip to Worlds, Team Schmidt has a lot to be proud of.
For Marissa, she will remember the trip to Worlds from this year, along with a celebratory trip to The Castle where the team had the chance to bond following their success at Regionals. “It was really fun. That was one of my favorite memories of this year,” she added.
Brooke will remember the team’s success from Regionals and States, specifically, the first time the team performed the skit at regionals. “We were so scared, but afterwards, we all started hugging,” Florio said. “It was just a moment of pure joy.”
For Coach Schmidt, the year was another where she will remember the “brilliant and creative” students that she has the pleasure of working with on her team. “I have to bring their feet down from the stars, from the clouds into reality,” Coach Schmidt said.
Coach Heidi Seligman has been a part of Odyssey of the Mind for seven years, and this year marks her team’s sixth trip to Worlds. With each trip, Coach Seligman says it never gets old to be in a room with such a wide variety of countries represented.
“It’s like the United Nations,” Coach Seligman said. “You’re meeting teams from all over the world.”
Along with Coach Seligman’s daughter Carly, Nathan Hulse has been on each of the six teams that have been to Worlds. This year, Nathan was confident in the story the team had prepared, calling it “the best” story that he’s been a part of creating during his time in the program.
Nathan’s passion for psychology laid the groundwork for the team’s script. Drawing on inspiration from Aion by Carl Jung, Nathan combined Jung’s work with Alice Through the Looking Glass by, Lewis Carroll, which the team chose as the classic book required for the problem. The skit included Alice, played by Carly Seligman, getting trapped in a shattered mirror and going on a journey to convince her personality archetypes to reunite with her, in the end becoming her true self.
Despite the work they had put into their story, the team was nervous while awaiting their results. The props in Team Seligman’s skit included a life size haunted house, book with pages that flipped, and a two-pulley system that would have glass shatter, and re-emerge with a full picture. Their story was completed in December and rehearsed for months leading to Worlds.
Usually, the top two teams from States are invited to go to Worlds, but Team Seligman came in third and was still invited to advance. After the performances tale place at Worlds, the winners were announced in order from sixth to first. When the team didn’t hear their names in the beginning of the acknowledgements, Team Seligman thought they were not going to place at all. The competition, especially the teams competing from Poland that had animatronic birds as part of their performance, were hard to imagine finishing below them. “It’s just hard to be totally confident when you see that level of performance,” Nathan said.
In the end, Goshen did hear their name called, receiving first place at Worlds. The team was called down in front of thousands of people to receive their medals. “ I didn’t even know where to go to get back to our seats,” Coach Seligman said.
In the process of winning at Worlds, Carly Seligman received an OMer award, a recognition that goes to those who “serve as exemplary examples or role models through their actions or words.” Carly’s overcoming of stage fright to become the lead role in this year’s Worlds performance was an accomplishment that earned her one of only three recognitions among the thousands in attendance.
Looking back, Nathan will remember his contributions to the script in this year’s Worlds. “I loved all of the inclusivity of the story. I think that’s probably the best writing that I’ve done.”
Next year, Nathan is considering coaching a team for his final year in the district as a senior at Goshen High School. With his experience at Worlds of four first place finishes and a second place finish, Nathan has plenty of experience to share. “I’m fully satisfied with the entire team’s performance this year,” Nathan said, adding that deciding to coach after this year’s journey is “a good place to end.”
For Coach Seligman, her team’s performance on the world stage will be something she will look back on and remember, especially considering the team almost didn’t make the trip to Worlds. “We were shocked,” Coach Seligman said of the moment the team learned they finished in first. “We didn’t think we were going to go, but the district allowed us to go. We’re really grateful because we would never have known.”