THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, March 24, 1995 TAG: 9503220122
SECTION: CHESAPEAKE CLIPPER PAGE: 08 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY TONYA WOODS, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 141 lines
Their mission: destroy a man-made bug that is part snail and part mosquito, stop a mad scientist from destroying all the world's insects and jail two bug poachers.
And do it in eight minutes.
It may sound odd, but six fifth-graders from Occohannock Elementary School in Northampton took on this ``scientific safari'' challenge at the Tidewater Regional Odyssey of the Mind Program.
``I know we're here today to see how well we can work together as a group,'' said 11-year-old Anne Kirby, a fifth-grader from Occohannock. ``So I'm not really that nervous.''
Still, there were plenty of jangled nerves at Princess Anne High School in Virginia Beach Saturday when about 1,000 students from Chesapeake, Virginia Beach, Suffolk and Northampton County, Chesapeake, Virginia Beach pitted their brainpower against one another.
Odyssey of the Mind is a non-profit organization that started in 1978 for kindergarten through high school students. The program is designed to challenge students by giving them a problem to solve creatively and originally. Students choose from five long-term problems in September. They work on solutions after school and on weekends until the regional competitions in March.
``Some of the problems this year were almost intimidating,'' said Bill Wagner, an eighth-grade teacher at Cape Henry Collegiate Middle School in Virginia Beach, who also serves on the Tidewater Regional Odyssey of the Mind board.
Each team, consisting of no more than seven members, had to use some type of vehicle in their solutions. And, of course, the vehicle had to be self-propelled.
Some of the problems students had to solve included traveling to the past and the future in ``Time Travel,'' delivering domestic and foreign mail in ``The Mail Must Go Through'' and saving the world's insects in ``Scientific Safari.''
So students had to come up with some pretty creative stuff.
The Cox High School team from Virginia Beach used the foundation of an old wagon, a couple of two-liter Pepsi-Cola bottles for headlights and cardboard to create their ``pink passion panzy'' for their travels through time.
``We hung out at furniture stores to get the really big boxes,'' said Cox team member Aditi Agarwal, 14.
It was that kind of ingenuity that students had to employ. Different teams within the two divisions had budgets ranging from $50 to $100.
``We could spend no more than $75, and we spent $70.65,'' said Cox team Coach Maryann Nelson, whose daughter Erin, 14, competed for the second year in ``Time Travel.''
Aside from the long-term problem, participants also had to solve a spontaneous problem in five minutes.
``We're not allowed to be with them when they do the spontaneous problem,'' said coach Wanda Smith from E.W. Chittum Elementary School in Chesapeake. Along with co-coach May Robertson, she guided a team of seven fifth-graders through the scientific safari.
``I think I'm going to lie down for a week after this,'' she said.
Seventy percent of each team's score was for the long-term problem and 30 percent for the spontaneous problem.
Kimberly Dykes, Odyssey of the Mind judge coordinator, said the students also are judged on how well they stay within their budget and how well they work together in organizing their solutions.
``The things these kids come up with are truly amazing,'' she said.
Creating creatures like bottle-nosed dolphins and traveling through time to Woodstock 1969 and Woodstock 1994, students are finding out through Odyssey of the Mind that learning can be fun.
``I don't really care if we win or lose as long as we have fun and show good sportsmanship,'' said Scott Hubbard, a sixth-grader from Northampton Middle School in Northampton County, whose team traveled to the two famous Woodstocks. ILLUSTRATION: WINNERS
Results of the Tidewater Regional Odyssey of the Mind
Competition
``Scientific Safari''
Division I
1st - Trantwood Elementary, Va. Beach.
2nd - Occohannock Elementary Team B, Northampton County
3rd - Mount Zion Elementary, Suffolk
Division II
1st - Cape Henry Collegiate (Private), Va. Beach.
2nd - Star of the Sea Catholic (Private), Va. Beach.
3rd - Great Bridge Middle North, Chesapeake
Division III
1st - Cox High, Va. Beach.
2nd - Great Bridge High, Chesapeake
3rd - Salem High, Va. Beach.
``The Mail Must Go Through''
Division II
1st - Lynnhaven Middle, Va. Beach.
2nd - Northampton Middle, Northampton County
Division III
1st - Cox High, Va. Beach.
2nd - Bayside High, Va. Beach.
3rd - Great Bridge High, Chesapeake
``Classics . . . Vaudeville,''
Problem 3
Division I
1st - Crestwood Intermediate, Chesapeake
2nd - Western Branch Intermediate, Chesapeake
3rd - John B. Dey, Va. Beach.
3rd - Kingston Elementary, Va. Beach.
Division II
1st - Plaza Middle, Va. Beach.
2nd - Crestwood Intermediate, Chesapeake.
3rd - Landstown Middle, Va. Beach.
Division III
1st - Kempsville High, Va. Beach.
2nd - Kellam High, Va. Beach.
3rd - Cox High, Va. Beach.
``A New Twist,'' Problem 4
Division I
1st - Western Branch Intermediate, Chesapeake
2nd - Crestwood Intermediate, Chesapeake
3rd - Trantwood Elementary, Va. Beach.
Division II
1st - Cape Henry Collegiate (Private), Va. Beach
Division III
1st - Cape Henry Collegiate (Private), Va. Beach.
2nd - Tallwood High, Va. Beach.
3rd - Great Bridge High, Chesapeake
``Time Traveler,'' Problem 5
Division I
1st - Trantwood Elementary, Va. Beach.
2nd - Crestwood Intermediate, Chesapeake
3rd - Occohannock Elementary, Northampton County
Division II
1st - Cape Henry Collegiate (Private), Va. Beach.
2nd - Cox High, Va. Beach.
3rd - Great Neck Middle, Va. Beach.
``Math Party,'' Primary Problem, non-competitive
Cape Henry Collegiate (Private), Va. Beach.
Southeastern Elementary, Chesapeake
Crestwood Intermediate, Chesapeake
Butts Road Primary, Chesapeake
by CNB