The Camden High School Odyssey of the Mind team recently completed a year-long Odyssey of its own. On Saturday, April 13th, the Blue Devils competed at the New York State Odyssey of the Mind Championship at the New York State Fairgrounds.
Odyssey of the Mind is an international short-term and long-term problem-solving competition held each year. The short-term problem is a spontaneous exercise not known to the competitors until they enter the room on the day of competition. The long-term problem is generally performance based, engineering based, or a combination of the two. Teams across the state have been working since September to prepare for Regionals and potentially earn a spot at the State level.
The Blue Devils did exactly that on March 9th, as they claimed first place in the “Classics… Opening Night Antics” problem at the Region 21 Championships hosted by the Broadalbin-Perth Central School District. With the pun intended, that set the stage for an appearance at States.
At states, Camden placed seventh amongst a field of eighteen teams from across the state, including many teams from larger school districts such as Pittsford, Fairport, Vestal, Warwick Valley, and Binghamton. However, the students made the most of tremendous support throughout the day.
“The team enjoyed strong spectator support from their families who made the trip out to the event in Syracuse,” Advisors Jessica Harney and Melanie Callahan said. “As coaches, we were incredibly proud of how students handled themselves all day. This team has heart, humor, and positive attitudes and that made for a memorable year for all!”
The “Opening Night Antics” problem challenges students to devise a performance that portrays the opening night of a theater production, only the opening night is not allowed to go as planned. The performance needs to include a set malfunction, unexpected sound effects, and at some point, a theater critic character has to appear. Participants must build the set, engineer any functional pieces of the set, write an entertaining script, and create costumes.
And, they must do all of it without help from adults, and on a fairly tight spending limit, with exceptions for selected items.
After appearing at states a year ago, some brand new competitors to the OM program were key to returning the team to that benchmark. First-time competitors Isabella Keller and Benjamin Gallagher, both sophomores, joined the team this year, and their performing arts background benefited the team greatly.
Keller grew up around the stage. Her father, Steven, has been building sets for productions at Camden High School for many years, and she has acquired many of those skills over time. However, it was her on-stage performance that was most memorable at this event. She played the character of Director Bellavine.
During the performance, the on-set couch breaks to satisfy the requirement of a planned set malfunction. When it happens, Isabella’s character has to improvise and takes on the added role of the couch in the performance.
Gallagher notably delivered an energetic and humorous performance as a social media influencer character in the show.
For both, the experience was a positive one.
“I was pretty close with most of this team before I joined,” Keller said. “I would hear them talk about it and their prompts and what they’ve done in years past and it was really interesting. It sounded fun, and I like to be creative. So I thought I might as well give it a try… I really enjoyed working as a team and solving problems creatively. I liked being able to make our own skit, start from scratch, build it up as a team and watch it grow and flourish. That was the most fun part for me.”
“A lot of my friends were here and I love doing drama,” Gallagher said. “At first I thought this was a drama class but it’s so much more than that. You make everything from scratch and it’s really cool. It’s more difficult and challenging and I like that about this. I found it interesting that we could work together and make something with just cardboard and duct tape, and we could do a lot with what we had.”
The returning core of the team was made up from two state qualifier squads from 2023. Sophomores Alexis Albrecht, Abigail Arnold, Jasmyne Brouillette, and Autumn Porter were on last year’s team that participated in Problem 1. They were joined by junior Madison Hildenbrandt, who joined this group after many of her 2023 teammates graduated.
