Participants in the Odyssey of the Mind international program for the development of creative thinking and team cohesion compete in the online format for the first time.
On May 15, the opening ceremony of the Virtual World Finals was attended by 843 teams from all over the world: USA, Belarus, China, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Mexico, Poland, Russia, South Korea, Switzerland. Participants were welcomed by the chief judges of six long-term problems and the founder of the program, Dr. Samuel Miklus.
Presentations of long-term problems, inventive problems that have more than one correct solution, will be presented by teams in videos. A spontaneous contest, which is a very important part of the competition, will be held online. Each team has only one chance to solve a creative problem. In 25 minutes, participants must understand the problem, discuss it, choose the most creative answers and fix them in a special form.
Eight teams from the South Ural region, which is the largest delegation among the Russians, will take part in the Virtual World Finals. Representatives of the Chelyabinsk region, among which are teams of the Lyceum No. 11, the Istoki Educational Centre from Chelyabinsk, School No. 21 from Miass, the Mezhevsk Sanatorium School and the Bakal Children's Home-School, are winners and prize winners of 30 regional competitions held in South Ural State University on March 14-15. It was SUSU (then Chelyabinsk State Technical University back then) that brought the program to the South Ural region.
Two more Russian participants are representatives of St. Petersburg and Moscow.
In addition to competitions, the delegations of the Virtual World Finals have access to an online program: festival of creativity; virtual lessons from NASA; and competitions among families to solve inventive problems, which this year replaced the competitions among coaches.
The awards ceremony will be held on May 30. Only 19 teams from more than 800 participants will receive the title of World Champions.