Odyssey of the Mind World Finals!

In March, we traveled to Berlin to compete in the German Odyssey of the Mind competition -- and we won first place! Not just in our division and problem set, but the highest score across the competition. This was the first time the American School of the Hague had competed at the German finals in almost twenty years. We are now going to compete on the world stage at the OM World Finals. This year, the competition will be held at Iowa State University.

We worked incredibly hard preparing for our competition and are excited that we will get to compete at the next level. We had to write a skit (which had awesome jokes, by the way), design props and costumes, and even compete in a spontaneous problem they gave us just a few minutes to solve. We had to learn how to encourage one another, brainstorm solutions, overcome unexpected challenges and work hard on a common goal. And we did it!

We are raising money to help cover our competition fees for our seven members and one coach. Traveling from The Netherlands to Iowa is not cheap and we so appreciate any support you can provide to help us realize our goal.

Odyssey of the Mind is an international, scholastic competition focused on problem solving. It teaches kids to solve niche, weird, complex problems, to think about how to solve challenges from different perspectives, to respect our teammates and collaborate. Some of those things were harder to work through than others! :). At Odyssey of the Mind, teams work all year to solve a detailed problem and create a skit that they perform for tournament judges. Also on the day of the each tournament, they compete on the spot to solve a new, smaller problem they have never seen before. At the World Finals, over 800 teams from 26 countries will compete in elementary, middle school, and high school divisions.

We are very proud of the work that we have done and think we have a chance to do well on the world stage too. Please help us make it to Iowa in May!