Congratulations to the City High Middle School Odyssey of the Mind team. They will be traveling to Michigan State University to compete in the Odyssey of the Mind World Finals next month.

There are more than 800 teams from around the world competing in this 36th annual event. Odyssey of the Mind emphasizes creativity and teamwork and has grown into the largest international creative problem-solving competition worldwide.
In addition to competing, the team will have the opportunity to stay in the dorms on Michigan State’s campus, watch the opening ceremony float parade, and share the experience with teams from more than 15 countries around the world. After the event, the City High Middle School team will be hosting a team from Slovakia for 5 days, showing them around West Michigan and giving them a tour of the school.

Odyssey of the Mind is a creative problem solving competition in which teams of 5-7 students create a skit around a given set of criteria, including time and budget limitations. This year's problem involved creating a live video game based on the story of Pandora's Box. In the team's solution, the main character, "Dad", had to conquer the evils of anger, vanity, and greed, which were represented by material objects, including a robot, mirror and doll. The team is responsible for writing the script, creating costumes and a back drop, and performing before a team of judges.

The members of the team are Ann Dykema, Morgan Hollemans, Ellie Lancaster, Eleanor Lowen, Matthew Niels, Liam Bulkowski, and Olivia Moran. The team is coached by Cindy Koning. Now in its third year together, this is the team's second trip to the world finals competition.

City High Middle School has a successful Odyssey of the Mind record. This year, City High Middle School had five teams compete at the regional level. All five teams placed first or second and moved on to the state competition. Koning’s team is the only City High Middle School team to advance to the world finals.

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