Academia teams succeed

The Odyssey of the Mind, Rocketry and Robotics teams have encountered recent successes in competitions.

Odyssey of the Mind, in its second year, is an international program that encourages critical thinking and creative problem-solving. Students were assigned five problems in September, and chose one to solve. They then presented their solution at the Los Angeles Basin Regional Feb. 23 at Westlake High School.

“We met nearly every Friday for two hours after school in the Oak Park Library for seven months,” team supervisor Jane Brumby said.

The team placed first in Regionals and second at the University of California, Riverside State Tournament March 23.

“They are the first team in the Oak Park school district to advance to Worlds,” Brumby said.

World Finals will take place from May 23 to 27 at Iowa State University.

“Teams come from around the world, representing over 17 countries, including Japan, China, Portugal, Italy, Korea, Singapore and Poland,” Brumby said.

Brumby said that she feels the students’ dedication paid off.

“It’s a fun, creative process, but it does require the kids work together, brainstorm, share ideas, critique, prototype, build, test and rebuild the props and presentation they will ultimately present at the tournament,” Brumby said.

According to Brumby, the team’s wins were more than just hard work.

“They do it with humor so the whole process is pretty fun.  It keeps them coming back each week, year after year, to participate,” Brumby said.

Four teams within the Rocketry Team also competed in the Team America Rocketry Challenge, where their efforts secured them one spot in the finals. They placed in the top 101 out of 800 nationally competing teams.

“It was great and I am very proud of [junior] Andrew Wells –– the team captain –– and his team,” team supervisor and superintendent Tony Knight said. “I am also very proud of the other three teams we had. Their scores didn’t get them into the finals this year but all teams worked equally hard.”

Wells described the challenges that his team faced this year.

“We had a number of launches that were rained out, forcing us to try and fit launches in until the last day we could for the competition,” Wells said.

Teams were allowed to launch their rocket anywhere in the nation as long as a qualified observer was present and scores submitted by April 2. Oak Park’s team launched their rocket at Underwood Family Farms in Moorpark.

According to Wells, Rocketry Team is comprised of passionate students.

“Overall, the rocketry club as a whole is made up of people who are enthusiastic about learning about aeronautics, engineering and rocketry,” Wells said.

The Robotics Team encountered less success in competition this school year, but the team had a more important victory than expected, according to senior and team captain Timothy Ha.

“What we realized is that most of the combined knowledge of our club is held by our seniors, which would mean that once we graduate, the club would essentially fall on its face,” Ha said.

Rather than focus on building a robot for competition this year, the team’s seniors sacrificed their final chance at glory.

“We had to reconstruct the club to train our underclassmen to have the knowledge and skills that our senior engineers have,” Ha said. “We mainly took a hands-off approach and allowed the students to come up with their own ideas and we were only there to correct their mistakes.”

More efforts were also made to bring in future members.

“We participated in the Brookside Elementary Family Science Night, allowing students to play around with our robots, hopefully with the eventual effect of bringing in new members,” Ha said.

Even though the team did not place as high as hoped, Ha maintains a positive outlook.

“Was this a failure in my book? I didn’t think so: we were still able to leave knowing that Oak Park Robotics will strive to live on and maybe with our efforts to keep the club on its feet, it will eventually exist to win the World Championships,” Ha said.