(Left to right) Benicia Middle Schoolers Michael Cerna, Aidan Torres, Aidan Schultz, Blake Harris, Jonah Tillotson, Aly Diaw, Jacob Knott pose with the trophy they won for the California Odyssey of the Mind competition at Heritage High School in Brentwood. They will advance to the World Finals at Michigan State University in May. (Photo courtesy of Carrie Todd)

As part of the Odyssey of the Mind competition, seven Benicia Middle Schoolers have been working to think outside the box. That type of thinking will take them outside the state when they participate in the World Finals in May.

Odyssey of the Mind is an internationally sponsored competition for students ranging from kindergarteners to college pupils that blends academic education with creative, out-of-the-box thinking. The goal is to bring students together through teamwork as they solve problems.

This year, two teams from Benicia participated but only one from BMS— consisting of seventh-grader Aidan Schultz and eighth-graders Aidan Torres, Aly Diaw, Blake Harris, Michael Cerna, Jacob Knott and Jonah Tillotson and coached by Amy Cerna and Carrie Todd— will be advancing to the World Finals at Michigan State University. It all began with the Regional Competition, which was held March 4 at Concord High School and El Dorado Middle School in Concord. From there, they were able to advance to the State Competition at Heritage High School in Brentwood on March 25 and then finally to the World Finals, which Todd said had never happened before.

“Teams have advanced to the State Competition, but Benicia has never sent a team to the World Finals,” she said. “We are very excited and proud of the work of our boys!”

It certainly was a lot of work. The team has been meeting since October and first had to determine which of the five long-term projects they wanted to choose from. These included creating a vehicle of some kind, building a weight-bearing structure out of balsa wood, a problem with a technical focus, an interpretation of classic works of art or literature and a performance with specific elements.

“The problems change every year, but the categories stay the same,” Todd said.

The team opted to go with the performance-based problem, which involved crafting a story about creativity being threatened in the world, utilizing a superhero, villain, clumsy sidekick, choreographed battle and cliffhanger ending. The team had to conceptualize a story, write a script, build a set and design props and costumes— all without any outside assistance.

“They wrote a story that had a villain stealing creativity for himself and a superhero with crazy ‘wrapping’ powers,” Todd said. “He was dressed in candy wrappers, but his power is that everything he rhymes come true. Their battle scene was a rap battle with choreographed movement and back-up rhythm. It was very funny.”

Students have also had to solve spontaneous problems, including being provided an array of disparate objects that they have to hang from a string; building a very high structure to support a golf ball using only straws, tooth picks and a marshmallow; and trying to provide as many answers as possible to questions like “Why is the sky blue?”

The team will continue to do these kinds of challenges on a larger scale at the World Finals at Michigan State on May 24 through 27, where they will square off against more than 800 teams from 26 different countries.

“I can’t wait for them to see how many different ways there are to solve the same problem,” Todd said. “I think it will be fascinating to watch performances from other parts of the world to see how culture might change the interpretations of the problem.”

Todd thanked Benicia Unified School District for the opportunity.

“The school district has been very supportive of us,” she said. “We want to thank them for their encouragement and their financial support”

Todd is proud of the hard work her teams has put in.

“I hope they also learn that their wacky, creative ideas are really valuable,” she said. “These boys can be silly and funny and crazy, but that is part of what makes them a great team!”

To help cover the costs of shipping props, car rentals, parent chaperones and more, a GoFundMe page has been set up at gofundme.com/bmsootm.

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