Voorheesville of the Mind

Voorheesville does it again at Odyessey Worlds

2009-05-30T21:42:00.000-07:00

That third place trophy sure is big! Congratulations Team

Show Time

2009-05-29T21:07:00.000-07:00

Pre Performance

2009-05-29T21:02:00.000-07:00

It has Begun

2009-05-28T07:13:00.000-07:00

The Odyssey of the Mind World Finals competition kicked off last night at Iowa State University with a bang. The Voorheesville Middle School team wearing their New York State t-shirts and their glow in the dark Statue of Liberty crowns sat with the rest of the New York teams and cheered along with the thousands of other Odyssey folks in the Hilton Coliseum. Alex Relyea reprsented the school with the New York State group as they entered the coliseum in the parade of nations and states.

The team arrived in Ames in good shape yesterday afternoon, considering the started off at the Albany airport at 4 am then flew into Chicago then drove 6 hours to Ames. There was a snafu with the dorm assignment and they had to be reassigned rooms leaving them homeless for awhile but the intrepid chaperones prevailed in sorting things out.

The team has a busy day today unloading props, competing in spontaneus and rehersing their performance which will be first thing Fri. morning.

State Champions

2009-04-14T05:55:00.000-07:00

Vooheesville Does It Again!

2009-04-04T20:02:00.000-07:00

The High school team placed 5th in there division. The Middle school team placed first place out of 19 teams. They were competing against other 6th, 7th and 8th grade teams from all round the state. Congratulations teams! All your hard work has paid off. And many thanks to Coaches Jean and Cindy.

A few images from Saturday

2009-03-02T14:34:00.000-08:00

A few images from the regionals cortesy of Cindy Morrison

V'ville Team Wins Regional Competiton

2009-03-02T10:07:00.000-08:00

Anglo-Chinese School (Our Buddy Team)

2008-06-02T13:05:00.000-07:00

Members of our Singapore buddy team pose with some of us after their performance in the Road Rally. The black one is an ant and the black and yellow ones are bees.

This is a picture of the Singapore team doing their victorious bee dance after they have done away with the ants who tried to invade their hive and steal their honey. Keep in mind this whole skit is performed while operating a vehicle performing 5 different sports oriented activities. Don’t ask….

The Singapore bee vehicle, we think it is called “Antibiotic” tosses a ball into the mouth of a beast.

Here we are wearing the shirts the Singapore team gave us and waving the Singapore flag to cheer them on.

At 2:30 the team went to watch their buddy team from Singapore’s competition. They are in the Road Rally. They have designed a vehicle which they will have to move a certain distance while performing 5 separate activities. They were great!

Pin Trading

2008-06-02T10:45:00.001-07:00

Alex Relyea trades pins with an other Odyssey kid.

Ben McKay displays his pin collection for Sarah Murray.

The team spent the late afternoon trading pins with other Odyssey teams. Each state and country designs special pins for the competition and team members from around the world get to know each other by trading pins with each other and it is a lot of fun.

Creativity Festival

2008-06-02T10:39:00.001-07:00

This is part of the NASA booth at the Creativity Festival.

Later that morning the team volunteered in the New York State booth at the Odyssey of the Mind Creativity Festival. The game run by New York State involved operating a train with a bicycle pump and using a beaver puppet to shoot a ping pong ball into the train. When they are done volunteering they visited booths run by other states and countries and participate in activities such as origami at Hong Kong’s booth, moving a lizard through a maze at Arizona’s booth, group walking on planks with ropes at Delaware’s booth and Swat a Maine Mosquito.

They will visit the NASA exhibit where they will be able to build straw rockets, sun potters and UV detectors as well as learn about the Hubble Telescope and the Goddard Space Station. The team will also have the opportunity to view the NSA E-Theater Presentation where they will view images of the Earth, the sun and satellites. NASA is a major financial supporter of the Odyssey of the Mind because they need kids to learn how to think out of the box to solve problems as a team so that they can grow up to be the kind of thinkers they need to solve problems for their programs. Later in the day the team will go to the International Festival.

This is a picture of us working at the New York State booth at the Creativity Festival.

Watch out for the ping pong ball that is going to shoot out of the mouth of that beaver. Sometimes the older kids shot at us instead of us at the train.

Wolfie golfs while Matt looks concerned.

Lots of little Omers, the Odyssey mascots.

The Competition, South Korea

2008-06-01T20:18:00.000-07:00

Very stiff competition for the Wonderful Muses from South Korea that put on an amazing show featuring how The Scream was painted after a bad haircut and much, much more. Hilarious and impossible to describe.

Precompetition

2008-06-01T20:09:00.000-07:00

Matt Feller and Braeden Morrisson get psyched up before the performance.

Our team gets their costumes on in the staging area.

Ben McKay applies an impressionistic Van Gogh beard to Wolfie Gehring’s face.

Sarah Murray’s Stellar costume awaits.

The sign designating the Wonderful Muses competition area.

Our Buddy Team From Singapore

2008-06-01T20:07:00.000-07:00

That evening the Voorheesville team met with its Singapore buddy team to exchange gifts. The team is from the Anglo Chinese School. Team members are all 11-year old boys and include: Arvind; Brian Teyu; Brian Tan; Brandon Leow; Daniel Choong; David Tang; and Benjamin Pang. Their coach, who is also their teacher at school is Jeffri Khalid. They team is accompanied by several parent chaperones. After the competition they will visit Washington DC and New York City before returning home to Singapore.

The

Singapore

team gave the Voorheesville team

Singapore

team shirts, pins and key chains. The Voorheesville team gave

Singapore

the Voorheesville team shirts, American flags and a scrapbook about all about their team, their community and their school.Our gift exchange with our

Singapore

buddy team.

Sarah Murray helps the younger brother of one of the Singapore team members don his Statue of Liberty crown.

Coach McKay compares notes with Singapore coach Jeffri Khalid.

Lydia Parker pin trades with a boy from the Singapore team.

The Singapore team came to watch our performance.

Odyssey of the Mind Worlds Competition

2008-06-01T19:59:00.001-07:00

Matt Feller as rock and roll starfish Sola during our performance.

On Sunday June 1^st the Voorheesville Elementary School’s Odyssey of the Mind Team competed against teams from South Korea, Germany, and across the United States in the Odyssey of the Mind World 2008 Finals at the University of Maryland in College Park Maryland. Team members include fifth graders: Matt Feller; Wolfie Gehring; Ben McKay; Braeden Morrison; Sarah Murray; Lydia Parker; and Alex Relyea. Jean Mckay is the team’s coach. Parent chaperones accompanying the team are Susan Feller, Cindy Morrison, Donna Parker, Wendy Relyea, Debbie Murray, and Laurie Ten Eyck. Family members Andrew Feller, Beth Mattfeld, Dieter Gehring, Casey Morrison, Jack Murray and Scott Murray were are also in attendance.

Braeden Morrison as rock and roll starfish Luna with a double neck guitar. Nice hats guys!

The performance went extremely well and the judges, who smiled and laughed throughout the eight-minute show, were obviously impressed as was the audience. The show was also watched by Voorheesville’s Odyssey Buddy team from Singapore who were very supportive thought the performance was great.

The team was happy with their performance although they felt somewhat hindered by the size of the stage which was significantly smaller than the stages they had performed on at the Regional and State competitions and made operating behind the scenes a challenge.

After the performance the team was interviewed by reporter Andrew Schotz for The Altamont Enterprise. Andrew used to work full-time for the Enterprise. He now lives in Maryland and is a reporter for a Maryland paper. He will file his story this week and you will be able to read it in the June 5^th edition of The Altamont Enterprise.

Lydia Parker as the Muse of Astronomy Urania.

On Monday, June 2^nd at 8 a.m. the team competed in the spontaneous problem solving finals. They team found the problem a challenge to but were satisfied that they did their very best. Coach McKay was pleased the kids were met with such a challenge as she wants them to learn that Worlds is a tough competition.

The back of the t shirt of one of the judges at our performance.

Ben Mckay as Top Hat, playing the flute to indicate one of the moments of inspiration

during our show.

The show.

Wolfie Gehring (Van Gogh), Braeden Morrison (Luna) and Sarah Murray (Stellar).

Sarah Murray as Stellar, Alex Relyea as Claudia and Wolfie Gehring as Van Gogh.

Alex Relyea as Claudia the girl surfer dude who gets Van Gogh to go to the beach.

Van Gogh shows off his “dark” painting.