Odyssey of the Mind State Finals (weekend post: part 1 of 3)

Five months of work went into this very day, as the Liberty Intermediate Shock Waves Division II Team headed into the Weigh-in at Heritage High School in Brentwood, CA. (Between Antioch and Concord, not the SoCal one.) They had worked hard,a nd this was their chance to prove it. The way here was not without "shocks" however. . .

After the team won first place at Regionals, they went about making another structure, with a few modifications. The judges had given the kids a few ideas, so they wanted to see if they would work. At the test, it held 326.3lbs. The kids were thrilled! That was the highest weight held to date!

The next night, the team appeared before the Kerman Unified School District School Board and were recognized for their achievements! They also did a presentation of their problem, which held 275lbs. As coaches, Tammy (the assistant coach) and I were so proud of them and excited to see them recognized for all the hard work they have done.

At this point, we had run out of balsa wood from the box I bought at the end of last year, so we ordered a new one. In the meantime the kids had to relearn the skit, as one of the kids, Devin, would not be able to go to State and John had to learn his lines. (Amanda, Wyatt and Brenda were also in the skit.) When we got the new balsa wood the team built a new structure, and we bought a small gram scale so we didn't have to keep borrowing one. When we weighed the new structure it was 3 grams over the weight limit! Huh?! We tested the new scale and it was accurate. We could not fathom why the structure weighed so much more!

In the meantime, a week ago last Wednesday, I was calling one of the girls, Brenda, to see if she wanted to order trade pins. I got her sister, who said she (the sister) was at the hospital. Thinking something had happened to her, I asked if she was alright. She said they were there with their mother, who had stage 4 esophygial (sp?) cancer. I was so startled! Brenda had never said a thing! We had absolutely no idea! Her sister said that they hoped that Brenda would be able to make it to the State Finals, but they just didn't know. We completely understood, but at this point we didn't know if we could even compete with only four members if the worst were to happen.

After a few phone calls we found that thankfully they can, so we also started to prepare for the contingency that Karina would need to learn Brenda's lines as well. Last Monday Brenda came to the meeting to tell us that her mother had passed away on Saturday. The funeral was going to be on Friday. We hugged her and told her how very sorry we were. On Friday morning, Tammy and I and two of the team members attended the funeral. From there we went straight to Liberty to help the team complete the structure during their lunch hour. That night we all left for the State Finals. Time will tell whether the distraction of State Finals was the thing that Brenda needed as a consistency in her life that would help her through this most difficult time in her life.

In the meantime we think we had figured out why the structures weighed so differently. The wood that the kids used first had been sitting for a year, curing. The new wood weighed more. Crazy. So, with one week left the kids had to modify their structure. They had to cut the cross supports down from two to one piece of balsa wood. And, despite months of planning, we went to State Finals without having tested it. (Sound familiar?)

We all drove up to Finals on Friday night, except for Brenda, who was going to be driving straight up on Saturday morning. We had the weigh-in at 8:35 and the Long-term Problem (skit and weights) at 10:30. At 7am (with a three hour drive ahead of her) Brenda had not yet left Kerman. The team went in for the Weigh-in and handed in their smaller structure. They were nervous about it, but with the original structure being so far overweight, they couldn't even take the "over weight" penalty and use the one they knew would do well. And then, Karina began feverishly trying to learn Brenda's lines.

It was a gorgeous morning and the sun was shining, but it was VERY windy, so it was pretty chilly. Heritage High School is a very new campus, and it is huge! Several of the team members had purchased pins, and during the breaks Amanda had a great time trading pins with the other kids. They got eight pins of their own region and then traded with the other kids for one pin from each of the other regions. That process was like a feeding frenzy! She also got a tshirt. They were really cool! The back listed the school and each of the kids that were represented at the State Finals. (Amanda's name was almost right smack in the middle of the shirt!). There were six different choices for the front of the shirt and then they screen printed them right there! It was really cool to watch the printers do it right there in front of you.

At 10:00am the team went to check-in for the Long-term problem. They got ready with their costumes, props, etc. and at 10:25, just moments before the team was called in to present, Brenda arrived. Karina was very relieved!

During the presentation the kids were a little bit off, having had so much to deal with in such a short time, and their skit, which was only supposed to be less than 2 minutes long ended up being three and they hesitated when they were putting weights on and kept putting small weights on. Anyway, when they timed out there was 305 lbs on it! That was the most they had ever done in competition. The judges put a piece of paper on the top weight and then they added another 100 lbs! 405 lbs on a structure they were worried would take less weight! Never in any practice has their structure held that much! Tammy and I were so thrilled, but absolutely heartbroken for them that they timed out when they could have had 405!

The team members commented later that they liked the judges at the State Finals better than the experience they had at Regionals, as the officials here made them feel more comfortable. Their instructions and questions were clear and not confusing.

At the time of their performance they were far above any of the other teams, but as the day progressed, several teams did much better, with the highest weight being 580lbs! Wow! (We had checked the Regional scores and knew there was a team that had held 560lbs at the Regional level, but we never shared that with the kids so they would not walk into State Finals thinking they couldn't win.).

There was still a chance that with their Spontaneous competition scores and Style points they could pull off a medal. They went in to the Spontaneous Problem with cheers from their coaches and parents. They came out smiling, telling us that the Spontaneous Problem official told them that they had done really well. (They aren't allowed to tell us about the problem until after World Finals.)

There was a four hour break, in which we did some geocaching (see part 2 of 3). We returned to the campus at 6:30pm and after sweating it out for two hours in a crowded gym with 300+ screaming kids (that part always takes WAAAAAY too long), they announced the top six teams in each problem and division. (Thankfully they started with problem 5 this time and worked backwards. We were problem 4.) They said sixth, fifth, fourth, (we were getting all excited at the prospect that they might have even placed as high as third) and then . . .oops! We missed a tie for sixth place. Liberty Intermediate! Yea!!! The team stood up and got their applause and then we all got the heck out of there!!! As we walked out of the building and into the cool night air, I realized how close I had come to fainting. Whew! It had been way too hot in there!

The thing is, no matter how well they did or didn't do, they had fun! They worked out issues together! They stood by each other! Amanda, Brenda, Devin, John, Karina and Wyatt are awesome!

See all the Odyssey of the Mind State Finals pics HERE.