Utah Odyssey of the Mind 2016 Pins, Shirt, and Crazy Hats

 A week and a half ago was the Utah Odyssey of the Mind competition, and as tradition we got a whole new set of pins and shirts for our theme, keeping with the blue monsters and going western.  Every year each participating State and Country create new pins and shirts to trade.  Trading at the World's competition is a huge deal, and after closing ceremonies is when the shirt trading starts.  I've gotten some cool shirts these last two years.

 I love Western Omer!

 Creativity Outlaws: Our theme.  BTW, Idaho was on all our pins, but an Idaho team didn't end up competing at our competition (they wouldn't compete against Utah teams, only against other Idaho teams) .  There isn't an OotM program in Idaho, so we let them come to our competition.  There were originally three ID teams, but they all dropped out, but by the time the last team dropped out our pins had all ready been ordered.

 The three blue monsters showing all 5 problems: 

Problem 1, Vehicle: No-Cycle Recycle

Problem 2, technical: Something Fishy

Problem 3, classics: Aesop Gone Viral

Problem 4, structure: Stack Attack!

Problem 5, performance: Furs, Fins, Feathers & Friends

 An Omer pin that's sold on the main website, not tied to a State.

 This years bobble pin.

 The Utah shirt.  Purple is for Officials.  The judges shirt was brown.  The participants/spectactors shirt was like a black, dark navy blue.  The officials/judges shirts were SO much better this year!!  Last year our shirt was based on the box problem set pin.  I really like this years shirt.

 My crazy hat!  So I didn't make one this year.  I wore my Steampunk western style Minnie Mouse ears that I got at Disneyland two years ago. I love this hat!  And it fits both our State theme and Problem 5 theme, which I'm problem captain over.

 My Dad was my announcer/timekeeper this year, and he had a lot of fun creating this Olaf crazy hat.  All the kids loved it.  And my Dad had a lot of fun.  He said he would help again; I'm totally holding him to it!!!  We were super short on volunteers.  I was P.5 problem captain/head judge, P.3 long-term judge, and was supposed to also be the P.5 timekeeper/announcer, but there was no way I could get scores out and later meet with couches with their scores, at the same time keeping our problem site on schedule, if I was timekeeper/announcer, so my Dad stepped in last minute to help me out.  Which was a huge, huge help.

My brother is Problem 2 problem captain, and he created a Raspberry Pi (mini computer), which he uploaded Super Mario Brothers, completely playable, and attached it to his hat.  It was really cool.

So there you have it!  Another year down.

I'm not going to Worlds this year, due to going to France and finances, so I'm sad about that.  I even had a dream about pin trading, and woke up realizing I don't get to pin trade this year!!  Kinda silly.  I hope everyone has fun at Worlds :0)

My 2015 Odyssey of the Mind Crazy Hat

It's my Pirate Princess Cowgirl Hat!  Many years ago I bought this red beauty at the Pirates of the Caribbean store in Disneyland Park.  The "Pirate Princess" lettering is unfortunately hard to read, but I still find it pretty funny.

What is Odyssey of the Mind?  It's an incredible program that promotes students to be creative and think outside the box.  And there are 5 creative categories students can participate/compete in: Vehicles, Technical, Classics, Structure, and Theatrics.  There's great information on the OotM (short for Odyssey of the Mind) website that goes into further detail.

This last weekend was judges training for the Utah State OotM competition, which is being held at the end of March.  Our state is still small in the organization, so there are no regional competitions, and this year we've invited Idaho teams to compete with us! (Utah and Idaho teams are not competing against each other).  And there's a chance in the next year or two Wyoming teams will come and compete in Park City Utah as well.

As the problem 5 problem captain I trained the Theatrics judges for "Silent Movie," the name of our long term problem this year.  It's such a fun problem!  You can read the synopsis here.

All judges are encouraged to wear a crazy hat while they judge, it's something fun for the kids to see, and it allows us to be a little silly.  All Omer's are silly!  So I brought my new crazy hat to show the judges.

 I took my pirate princess cowgirl hat and attached some of my favorite 2014 pins from the World competition last year, and I found some pretty fake flowers to add a girly cute touch.

Some of my more favorite pins didn't make the hat because they didn't "look" right.  And I realized in hindsight that 3, Three, Virginia pins made the final cut!  But I'm happy with how it turned out.

 I still need to attach the flowers with embroidery thread, because they kept falling off during training.

 Proof that the base hat is official licensed Disney merchandise :0)

As a note, the only time I've seen this hat at Disneyland was about eight or so years ago, and have never seen it before or sense.  I visit Disneyland about once a year.  Maybe it didn't sell well?  Maybe people didn't get the humor?  They should totally sale this hat again.

My "Pigs Can Fly" crazy hat is lovingly being kept in my closet, but will not be permanently retired.  Kids seem to really like it, and I feel it embodies the OotM spirit, though I may end up creating a whole new hat next year!  I've got some more fun ideas :0)