Edna Hill takes first place at Odyssey of the Mind

By Jeff Weisinger Staff Writer

BRENTWOOD Noah Shappet faced what might have been his last hurrah at the Odyssey of the Mind state tournament last weekend. The eighth-grader at Edna Hill Middle School is familiar with the tournament, and saved his best work for maybe his last.

Shappet, along with teammates Jaedel Garcia, Emily Ko, Makena Mathews, Jonathan Tjandra, and Rylan Truesdell took first place in their challenge and division at the Odyssey of the Mind state tournament at Adams Middle School, securing them their second consecutive trip to the World Finals at Michigan State University in East Lansing, Mich. on May 24-27.

“We just all wanted to put in our best effort,” Shappet said. “Last year, we went to Worlds and this year we wanted to go to Worlds again.”

At the Worlds, Edna Hill will compete against more than 800 schools from all over the world that also won their respective state and regional tournaments.

Edna Hill’s “best effort” saw them come within .54 points shy of a perfect 350 score for their challenge titled “Where’s the Structure?” In it, teams are required to build an eight-inch tall by two-inch wide structure made only of natural balsa wood and glue, weighing no more than 15 grams which is designed to carry something well more than its weight. While presenting it, the team has to put on a performance where they place three unfastened, re- movable parts into the structure all hidden in plain sight, challenging not only their creativity, but also their engineering skills.

Shappet took his inspiration for the structure from a bridge.

“I modeled it after things I saw, like bridges and those AT&T towers,” Shappet said. “When I built it, I made sure the sides were really thick. Balsa wood is pretty strong, but it can bend easily, so I used a lot of connections in between to prevent it from bending.”

The judges weren’t impressed with just the architectural feat, but also with Edna Hill’s performance and overall creativity. Shappet and his team put on a scene that portrayed an old farmer, his grandchildren, and a magician where they all eventually put the structure together. The structure ended up holding 370 pounds.

Odyssey of the Mind is a worldwide tournament in which students from elementary through high school team up and put their creativity and problem-solving skills together to solve complex problems without any outside assistance.

“We put these kids together into teams and make them work on problems in a team, and it goes directly to develop these types of skills that kids need right now,” said Bruce Mackinlay, the association director for the Northern California Odyssey of the Mind group. “It involves problem solving and teamwork and learning new things, but then applying them to build something.”

Teams throughout Northern California, let alone the rest of the country, have been working on their specific challenges since the fall, and working on them after entering in different regional tournaments and improving from the judges’ critiques. The judges would not comment on what criteria they use in their critiques.

“It’s really unique in that it’s student driven,” said Isabel Gervis, the events director for Odyssey in Northern California. “It emphasizes these applicable building skills, problem solving teamwork rather than just memorizing something or performing something that is perfect. There’s a lot of value in the imperfection and the improvisations.”

Edna Hill was just one of four total schools from Brentwood that qualified for the state tournament. They were joined by host Adams Middle School along with Mary Casey and Marsh Creek Elementary Schools.

Marsh Creek challenged with “Because iCan.” In it, the team of Jaxon Whatley, Shubhra Singh, Bentley Hanson, and Logan Dix were tasked with creating a device that can raise and flag and ring a bell at the same time, set to the theme of a zombie restaurant. Despite missing two people on the day, the fourth graders from Marsh Creek carried on with their challenge and fun skit. Unfortunately for them, the judges weren’t too impressed and they finished in last – not that the result mattered too much in the end for the young team.

“I’m proud of them,” said Jody Hanson, one of Marsh Creek’s coaches and Jaxon’s mother. “They worked and rehearsed really hard in my living room for weeks. This was an experience for them to come together and really all show their different strengths between artists, singing, engineering. They all work together great.”

“They work together and they’re smart. I could tell they were nervous, but I just told them beforehand to pretend like this is the living room and that they’ve done this for weeks.”

Marsh Creek and Mary Casey also entered the “Where’s the Structure” for the elementary school division and took third and fourth place, respectively.

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