A meeting of the minds

Monroe-Woodbury High School wins two awards Monroe — Odyssey of the Mind is a competition based on the premise that “mind games” can be played with as much passion, enthusiasm and competitive spirit as physical games of sport. Last Saturday, hundreds of students gathered at the Orange County BOCES Campus to compete in this intellectual contest, which rewards originality and creative problem solving using a team approach. So many kids turned out it was necessary to televise three ceremonies simultaneously into an “overflow” room so that everyone could be a part of it. The district coordinator, Sandra Kay, said the largest participating school district, Pine Bush, had approximately 18 teams of seven students. She explained that, because of its austerity budget, Monroe-Woodbury Central School District had only 15 instead of the 25 students they would normally have participating. The Monroe-Woodbury School District won two awards this year. The high school won the first-place award and the Ranatra Fusca Creativity Award for its work in the Tech Transfer category. This problem required teams to create and present an original performance that included use of a technical device that extended into different areas to move items. The team designed, built and operated the device, and created the items. The team integrated the moving of the items into its performance. The teams finishing first in the competition will compete for state championships on March 18 in Binghamton.