We're back!!! After a week jam packed with fun and new experiences we are home and really tired, but have so many stories and memories that will not be forgotten any time soon!
We arrived in Baltimore last Thursday afternoon and took a quick bus ride to the metro station. Emily and I took our first ever subway ride and were soon experts at figuring out how to use a fare card and transfer trains to get where we were going. We stayed the DuPont Circle area of D.C. on Thursday night after a long walk dragging our luggage and getting lost a few times we found our hotel and checked in. Then it was out to find dinner and do some evening sightseeing.
First stop the White House, it's beautiful to see all the old buildings and monuments lit up at night and D.C. doesn't seem to sleep because even though it was after 10:00 there were a lot of other people out and about. We walked from the White House, to the Mall where we saw the Washington Monument, the WWII memorial, and the Lincoln Monument.
Friday morning we were up early and back on the metro headed for Mount Vernon. I remember visiting Mount Vernon when I was probably not too much younger than Emily is now, and still remember the gardens and buildings being beautiful. My memories were not wrong, it is a beautiful property and we had wonderful day exploring the grounds.
Then it was time to head to the University of Maryland and check in with our other team members and a few more firsts. After checking the team in, we went to check out the dorm where we would live for the next week. Two to a room Lauren and Emily went about making their room home unpacking and making a sign for their door. The kids were excited about staying in the dorm, even if they were a bit basic, it was fun, as all the other teams from Benchmark were right on our floor just down from our rooms. Another Arizona team was on the ground floor and some teams from Poland were on the third floor. Next it was off for our first meal in the university dining hall. The kids had a great time exploring the huge dining hall and checking out all the choices!
Saturday morning it was up early and off to find our props, that had been shipped a few weeks earlier from Phoenix in a huge shipping crate via Roadway. They had been delivered to a parking garage next to the building where our performance was going to be. We began to unpack the crate and the kids started to work on repairs and fixes to the props, which had travelled well but needed a bit of sprucing up. A little bit after we arrived it stated to rain and being on the bottom floor of the parking garage below ground level made it a little unnerving. The sides of the garage were tarped off but water was leaking from the upper levels and some water was leaking in the sides and making the floor very wet. Also since most of our props were made of cardboard, paper, and fabric the humidity and water were not our friends at this point. After some rehearsing we did what we could to cover our props with the tarps they provided and hoped for the best.
Saturday night was the Opening Ceremony a huge event held in the Comcast Center where the UM basketball team plays. Each country and state participating paraded in with their flag and the teams were seated by states throughout the coliseum. There was a great laser show, videos for each problem, and a video of kids around the campus that our kids made it into when they were taped playing in the rain that day, they totally loved seeing themselves on the JumboTron. The founder of Odyssey Dr. Sam Micklus opened the competition and wished everyone good luck. There were two very moving speakers, the first single handedly brought the Odyssey program to South Korea and on his own funds every team that wishes to compete. The second was about a fifth grade Odyssey team who built a robotic hand for a class mate who had been born with no hands, it was amazing to see what such young kids can do when they are challenged to think outside the box.
Sunday morning it was off to compete! The day we had been practicing for and working so hard for since last December had come! We transferred our props from the still wet parking garage to a ballroom in the Riggs Alumni Center next door to the competition room. We did some last minute touch up and running through of the performance and at about 11:45 they were called to check in! THIS WAS IT! The kids were amazingly calm! They turned in their paperwork and went though the check in process with the staging judge, before moving their props to the hall behind the competition room. The other team was done and moved out, and they were up! The audience was a full house, including several parents who had made the trip with us, their school principals, and the Arizona OOTM director. Just over 10 minutes later they were done! I have never been so proud of them! Our scrappy little team had made it to the World Finals, something we never could have imagined 7 months earlier!
After the your performance is over at Worlds there is an unofficial ceremony where the team gets to dispose of their props! Outside each competition site is a huge dumpster for trashing EVERYTHING! The kids broke everything apart, hitting, smashing, tearing and beating things against each other and the dumpster! The paper machie dinosaur head that had taken several weekends to make, and then carefully transported to school, to Tempe, to Tucson, and finally to Maryland was beaten like a pinata! This was such a great release after so much hard work! I think it may be the highlight of the week!
The rest of Sunday was spent exploring the other activities on campus and pin trading. Pin trading is a HUGE activity at World's. Each participant brings odyssey pins from their state or country to trade with other participants. These pins are as creative and interesting as odyssey itself. Our kids had some great Kachina pins and lots of cactus and southwestern themed odyssey pins to trade including a very popular slinky dog pin that was a hot commodity. The kids picked up on the nuances of this 'sport' very quickly and knew exactly what they wanted. Emily came home with some great pins including ones from Poland, Singapore, South Korea, China, Japan, a fantastic Dunkin'
Donuts themed set from New Jersey, and her favorite a set of three converse shoe pins from West Virgina. The kids also got a chance to meet Dr. Sam and see the Ranatra Fusca trophy at the creativity festival.
Monday was our day off and we headed off to do some sightseeing in D.C. this meant another trip on the Metro which the kids thought was great! We were very fortunate and were able to schedule a staff led tour of the US Capitol through John Shadegg's office. One of his staffers took us on a very interesting tour of the Capitol building that we all enjoyed very much! We had picked up sack lunches before leaving campus and after our tour we had a picnic in the grass near the Capitol. Then it was off to explore the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, where the kids competed in a
paper airplane contest, and saw the Wright Brothers plane, Amelia Erhart's plane among many other things. No time to waste we headed for the National Archives the home of many historic documents. We saw the Louisiana Purchase, Emancipation Proclamation, the Declaration of Independence, the US Constitution, and Bill of Rights. After lots of walking, exploring
and standing in line the kids were tired and hungry, we headed up to Chinatown to find some great Chinese food for dinner! Then to round out our day we headed back to the White House and National Mall for some more pictures and exploring, before getting back on the Metro back to College Park.
Tuesday morning was our Spontaneous competition and the kids were ready to go! The judges came and got the team and we were left to wait for them to return. Later only after the closing ceremony (teams aren't allowed to discuss the spontaneous problem as all the teams get the same problem) they were able to tell us they were given a hands on problem in which they had to create a container to house a light bulb or an egg that they had to throw through a hula hoop
and land on a brick platform. They were given lots of supplies fabric, scissors, tape, bubble wrap, two envelopes, pencils, blocks, two rulers, a paper cup, newspapers, string, rubber bands a bat and a golf club. They thought the did well and more important worked well as a team. After they were done the kids got to award Christine and I with 'tartan tails'. All of the Spontaneous volunteers were dressed in kilts and handed out tartan sashes for the kids to duct tape to our backsides that we were instructed to wear until the end of the awards ceremony as a badge of our successfully coaching our team through worlds!
We stayed on campus for the rest of the afternoon for more pin trading and visiting with other teams. Tuesday night was the big awards ceremony where all the winners were announced. It was an exciting and crazy celebration of the week! After the awards ceremony there were parties for the kids, and the kids were trading more than just pins! Emily was able to trade away four Arizona Odyssey t-shirts and ended up with great Odyssey shirts from West Virgina, Colorado, and Kansas, she is very excited with her souvenirs. Lauren traded a few shirts for a Ruby Slipper on a stick a prop carried around by all the Kansas team members.
The kids ended up finishing in 43rd place in their division, not too shabby at all to be the 43 best team in the World for their division when you think of all the teams in the world who worked at solving this problem this year! So very proud of them!!!!
