Pittsford Schools’ Odyssey of the Mind teams competed in the WORLD finals held in Iowa against students from the U.S., Hong Kong, Poland, Korea, China, Japan, Germany, Mexico and more! Both teams earned a second-place category win and landed in the top 10 overall out of 47 highly competitive teams.

Team A placed 2^nd in the style category and 6^th overall. 

• Congratulations to: Grace Bylund (SHS), Rachel Dean (SHS), Tess Heffernan (SHS), Anne Bylund (SHS), Mesude Ersoz (MHS) and Ishann Ramesh (MHS).

They created an impressive visual and musical show in their Led Zeppelin inspired Viking Rock Band in the Performance Problem: Rockin' World Detour complete with a long boat and life-size moving dragon!

Team B placed 2^nd in the spontaneous category and 7^th overall. 

• Congratulations to: Anne Bylund (SHS), Audrey Filiaci (SHS), Norah Kirkebye (SHS), Tess Heffernan (SHS), Alex Wazowicz (SHS), and Cerys Malouf (CRMS). Riley Kottkamp (SHS) was unable to attend the world finals, but competed at the regional and states levels. 

The team created a clever and comical parody of “Pride and Prejudice” and “Les Miserables” in the Classics Problem: Opening Night Antics including a dance-off of "France Dance Revolution" and a well-engineered stage. Their exceptional “quick thinking”, earned them the second-place win in the spontaneous portion of the competition.

This was Pittsford Schools 36^th year participating in Odyssey of the Mind (OOTM), with “Brainstorm” as their theme this year.  Odyssey of the Mind is a student driven, creative problem-solving competition for students of all ages and learning levels.  Earlier this year, Pittsford hosted the regional tournament where over 400 students on teams from the Greater Rochester area competed.  Pittsford had 26 teams compete at the regional tournament this year.  Of those Pittsford teams, 17 teams advanced to the New York State Tournament which was held in Syracuse last month. 

Based upon their stellar performances at the state tournament, two high school teams, both coached by Pittsford teacher and parent Emily Bylund, earned the opportunity to compete in the OOTM World Finals tournament at Iowa State University.   The teams had not only the excitement of the tournament, but they also had to deal with real storms and shelter twice due to tornados in the area.

Odyssey of the Mind challenges teams of up to seven students to come up with an original solution while creating a skit that solves their given problem.  Team members must write a script, create their own costumes, build the set, and create props all within a budget.  At competition, teams present their skits in front of a panel of judges and highlight their unique solution.  They also must test their teamwork and creativity skills on the spot in a spontaneous problem at the competition.  While creatively solving their chosen problem, students learn divergent thinking, teamwork, public speaking, time and financial management, as well as other valuable life skills.

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