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An Odyssey of the Mind team from DeMiguel Elementary School in Flagstaff will be traveling to the world championships in Michigan later this month.

Odyssey of the Mind, or OM, is a competition focused on teamwork and creative problem solving. DeMiguel has two Division I teams (meaning third through fifth grade) and also hosts the regional tournament, which includes a noncompetitive version for younger students.

This team includes fourth graders Cy Turco, Brinley DeRosa, Amelia Engbring, Abby Martin and Wyatt Awbrey in addition to fifth graders Juliet Howard and Aubrey Smotek. It is coached by two parents: Danielle Awbrey and Anna Turco.

They have been meeting weekly since late fall to develop and practice their response to this year’s problem. The team competed twice in March and will be headed to East Lansing, Michigan, for the championships May 21-24.

In late April, DeMiguel's team was busy completing its structure for the main challenge and adding a few details to the skit.

“I think we’re pretty close to getting there,� Howard said when asked if the team was ready for the upcoming event. Smotek added that she felt “confident.�

Each OM team chooses one of six prompts to compete in, each with its own category of challenge and specific requirements.

The DeMiguel team chose the structure problem, which for the current school year involves an "unusual animal rescue." Each team needed to create three animals from balsa wood -- two real and one imaginary -- as well as a structure of the same lightweight rods that weighs less than 18 grams. The structures were judged on the amount of weight they were able to hold.

In addition to their performance, the students wrote their own skit and created the props and costumes.

The team explained that their eight-minute skit is about aliens “borrowing� animals from an Earth zoo because their own have gone extinct. They constructed a rectangular house for the animals -- a horse, a lion, and a pentagonal alien creature with extra eyes and limbs -- and incorporated baking soda through a large poster and mixing it with vinegar for an explosion during the skit.

DeRosa plays the zoo’s veterinarian, while Martin is the “responsible rescuer� of the animals, adding weight to the structure during the skit.

The competition also includes a spontaneous challenge in which students need to come up with a creative or humorous response to a prompt on short notice.

The students said they wanted to join OM because it looked fun or related to one of their skills. A couple of students said they learned about the club through an older sibling.

“I wanted to join because I like doing creative things, and all my family members said that I’m an actress,� DeRosa said.

Howard and Smotek also both mentioned a love of acting.

“I liked the one last year, and I’m really good at problem-solving,� Engbring added.

One reason the group is looking forward to the championships was pin trading with other teams from around the world. Each team brings pins representing their state (a new one each year) and exchanges them with other teams they meet during the competition.

Almost every student said this was one of their favorite parts of OM, discussing which pins might be available this year.

“Pins are very exciting, because it's basically your souvenir from the OM experience,� Howard said.

The students said they’d learned about teamwork, compromise and creative thinking during their time in OM so far. They said they'd become close with their teammates, and two said it had helped them become more confident. 

“I learned that if you work together as a team, then you can learn better relationships with those people,� Turco said.