Odyssey of the Mind team headed out from a life changing experience on April 11 2015 at Pennsbury High School. Not only did they take home first place in the regional competition, but they took home the highest creativity award. The team was overwhelmed to have been awarded the Ranatra Fusca twice this year. Representing the United States, the team is eager to take their talents and two suitcases worth of materials to World Finals on May 20-23.

After months of planning and preparation, NPHS proved their hard work ethics to the judges and made their mark at the regional competition. It’s quite the accomplishment when creativity and problem solving could get a group of high school students this far.

Brenna Ryabin, a sophomore at NPHS and new member NPHS’s Odyssey of the mind team this year explains about the Ranatra Fusca award, “It is the ultimate creativity award. It’s a higher honor than first place. And if you receive it you automatically advance to the next level. It’s presented to teams that display and extreme act of creativity weather it’s in a costume or a technical device.”

At the competitions, all competing teams are required to solve a specific problem, given to them months in advance, while meeting their given criteria. Teams all over Southeast Pennsylvania came together to present their solutions to the judges. The NPHS team had a total of 7-8 minutes to present all seven of their tasks.

Robert Gaibler, SGA senior class president explained, “We had seven tasks that were completed ranging from juggling a ping pong ball, to lifting a lid off a box, to shredding a piece of paper [all] with rubber bands. It’s our senior year (boys) and we wanted to go above and beyond and go out with a bang. We just thought of different ways of how to use the power of a rubber band and brain stormed the things that we think would be out of the box and not be used by other teams. We decided to combine rubber band power with air power and electricity to power our devices.”

For NPHS, their creativity skyrocketed as team presented their given scenarios. Aside from having a potpourri of materials that made up their dinosaur costumes (pistachios, water bottles, chicken wire) their advanced technical productions made a major impression on the judges.

Madison Wiernusz, a junior at NPHS, explains the outcomes of the competition, “They (judging team) started to talk about our technical devices. And all the boys worked extremely hard in incorporating physics and electrical engineering into it. It was amazing to see the things they could do and the judges noticed that. They noticed all our hard work all our technical [work] and costumes and I guess they thought we stood out.

Steve Ives, one of the head coaches of the team elaborates on his experience with the team over the years.

“I’ve had the pleasure of serving as one of the coaches for the NPHS Odyssey of the Mind Team for the past three years. The work ethic and drive that this team displays, along with the innovation and creativity of their solutions, has been simply incredible.
I’ve watched as they’ve grown from quiet middle-schoolers to confident upper-classmen. Along the way they’ve taught themselves new skills like circuitry, computer programming, pneumatics, sewing, acting and script writing to name a few. I think the only thing that they’ve wanted to learn but haven’t so far has been welding. ”

Ives continues to explain the team’s performance at regionals and chronicles their achievements.

“At States this month, they were one of the teams that people were talking about and a large crowd showed up for their performance. This year will be the sixth year in a row where the team has finished first at the PA State competition and moved on to the World Finals, dating back to 2010 (when they were the Penndale OM team).”

Above all, the team feels that Odyssey of the Mind has truly made an impact on their day to day lives. Their years of experience have helped them see things in a completely different view compared to their peers and have given them the confidence to tackle everyday obstacles.

“This is my tenth season doing it. I started back in third grade. It’s just always been a part of my life and I never found a reason to stop doing it. So that’s why I always continued to do it. And it just led me to be the person I am today… I can see all the aspects of it and how it has impacted me through everything I do whether it’s school, SGA, or just talking,” said Gaibler.

“I have learned how to look at things in a completely different perspective. Now I can look at some obscure object and think, ‘hey let’s make a costume’,” said Ryabin.

Acknowledging their accomplishments, NPHS Odyssey of the Mind team proved that creative ability can very well go hand in hand with intellectual ability. When it comes to the World Finals, the team is more than ready to finish strong.