The Pinto Family: Odyssey of the Mind WORLD Competition

Nicholas and his Odyssey team, together with 2 middle school Odyssey team from Queen of Angels, traveled to Michigan in late May (missing the last 2 days of school) and spent Wed-Sun at Michigan State competing in the World Odyssey of Mind competition. There were about 900 teams from countries from all over the world including China, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, Poland just to name a few. The whole week is along the lines of the Olympics - starting with opening ceremonies and then days of competition in both spontaneous and long term problems, and ending with closing ceremonies. There are various festivals and parties along the way and of course the pin trading!! Here are the highlights of this amazing and fantastic experience!!

Most of the Q of A crew (3 teams)

One of Nicholas' best friends, Connor, was on his team.

Opening Ceremonies - all the teams parade in with their flag

His team - Connor M., Nicholas, Charlie, Connor Y., Isabella and Hannah

It was cool for them to be on the University campus

These guys had had blast together all year

Heading into the Spontaneous problem

Coming out of their spontaneous problem, the coaches and parents surprised them with silly string!

Team Pep talk going into the their long term problem skit

All ready to perform

They had to bake the balsa wood to remove moisture and decrease the weight prior to competing since it was slightly overweight at weigh in.

The performance - Nicholas and Connor are each beach dudes who get sucked into their cell phones and have to play games and interact with various apps to win their way out of it.

During the 8 min skit, they have to toss their balsa structure with a homemade sling shot (pray it doesn't break) and then add weight to the balsa wood structure - it bore 110 lbs here before breaking (their record was 560 at state competition).

A great performance!!

A huge part of the week that kids especially loved was the pin trading - every country and every state has their own pins and the kids barter and trade with other kids from all over the world - even without speaking the same language, they communicate and bond over common interests - it was awesome!

International Pin trading

At the Creativity Festival - a huge cultural gathering with booths from all different countries, games and pin trading - this is at the South Korean booth.

His team with the Chinese team

Pin trading at the creativity festival

Having his name written in Chinese

Breaking down "the box" which he had created months ago for a prop

With the balsa wood world record holder, Cora - she built a 15oz structure that held about 1400 lbs - she worked with his team to teach them some tricks

More pin trading, this time with Mexico

With the Chinese team

Swimming at the hotel pool

While in town they were able to do some other fun activities unrelated to the competition, one of which was going to the the local minor league baseball game, the Lansing Lugnuts.

Even got to run the bases afterward

...Get a picture with a player and have the ball signed

And caught a couple balls!

Our whole family couldn't travel to Michigan so it was a special trip for Shawn and Nicholas together - quality father son time!!

They saw the sites of the city and campus

And toured the state capital

Nicholas' team placed 22 out of 52 teams in the Division 1 Balsa Wood Category. One of the middle school teams from our Queen of Angels placed 1st out of about 50 teams from around the world!!!! It was a trip of a life time for all the kids and they had a super fun time!