Three Lake Preparatory School Teams Compete at
Regional Odyssey of the Mind Tournament

Three teams represented Lake Prep of Leesburg, Florida at the regional Odyssey of the Mind (OM) tournament at Edgewater High School in Orlando. They were the only teams representing Lake County. Two of these teams will advance to the state tournament this weekend at UCF.

Odyssey of the Mind Program

OM is an international educational program that provides creative problem-solving opportunities for students from kindergarten through college. Team members apply their creativity to solve problems that range from building mechanical devices to presenting their own interpretation of literary classics. They then bring their solutions to competition on the local, state, and World level. Students also have to solve a unknown verbal or hands-on “spontaneous problem” as a part of the competition. Thousands of teams from throughout the U.S. and from about 25 other countries participate in the program.

The Problem Descriptions

• Problem 4: Lose Your Marbles – The team’s problem is to design, build, and test a structure, made only of balsa wood and glue that will balance and support as much weight as possible. The structure will also hold five marbles that will be released one-at-a-time during the weight performance as a result of team-created device removing a piece of the structure. The placement of the weights onto the structure and “losing your marbles” will be integrated into the theme of the performance.
• Problem 5: Silent Movie - Lights, camera…action! In this problem teams will create and present a performance depicting a Director character that produces and presents a silent movie featuring a humorous villain character that commits three silly acts of “villainy”. Characters that are in the movie may not speak as part of the presentation of the movie. Instead, like classic silent films, the team will use music played on a team-created instrument and creatively displayed subtitles to convey its story to the audience and judges. Also, teams will use a signal to indicate when the movie begins and ends.
• Primary: Wacky Weather Warning (Grades K-2) - Teams will create and present a humorous performance where a meteorologist makes three predictions of “wacky weather”. The meteorologist will speak in rhymes and use a team-created forecasting device and a backdrop that serves as a weather map. The community will “tune in” to get the weather report in any creative way the team wishes.

Lake Prep Teams

PRIMARY DIVISION, GR K-2

Wacky Weather, Second Grade- Advances to Florida OM State Tournament

• Coach Cheryl Thompson and Katrina Palmer
• Andrea Reyes, Suhani Nihani, Bryden Silva, Ryan Mehr, Roger Roden, Saige Stepp and Madisyn Cassidy

DIVISION II, GR 5- 8

Silent Movie

• Coaches Katrina Palmer and Gabbie Freeburg
• Olivia Robinson, Hunter Gnann, Samantha Sapp, Sakobe Sanders, Kristen Cifelli, and Hayley Mikkelsen

Lose Your Marbles – Advances to Florida OM State Tournament

• Coach Katrina Palmer and Rob Freeburg • Anna Shen, Carver Daniel Freeburg, Katelyn Mysinger, Pranav Gupta, Kate Mehr, Chandler Sapp, and Stuart Palmer