OREM — Halloween came early this year, or so it seemed at Saturday's Odyssey of the Mind competition.
Students of all ages were outfitted in costumes consisting of tin foil, cardboard boxes, swimming pool noodles, toilet plungers and more for a portion of the day's events.
Odyssey of the Mind, an international education program that promotes creative thinking and problem solving, returned to Utah for the first time in more than a decade, attracting more than 200 students, many of them in clever costumes.
Becky Brouwer, who moved to Utah three years ago, is responsible for the return of the program. When she moved from California, she missed the opportunities Odyssey of the Mind had offered her children. She put in thousands of hours of work to bring back the organization and make Saturday's events possible.
"I wouldn't be doing this if I didn't wholeheartedly believe in it," Brouwer said. "If you just let the kids go at it, it's amazing what they'll come up with."
Saturday's event, which was held at Utah Valley University, was a statewide competition to see who would move on to the 2010 World Finals in Michigan at the end of May. The top two teams in each division in each category advance. The competition consisted of two sections: long-term problem solving and spontaneous problem solving.
The long-term portion involved the entire team, which is made up of a maximum of seven students, spending a number of months leading up to the competition solving one of five problems Odyssey of the Mind presents to all teams around the world. The problems can include building structures out of balsa wood to support maximum possible weight or building a machine.
One of the long-term problems for this year involved making and operating numerous aircraft to complete a variety of flight plans. Each group presented its solution to the long-term problems in the form of a skit, complete with costumes.
A group of five boys from American Fork Junior High School presented the aircraft they had created in a skit about Arnold Schwarzenegger exploring outer space, meeting aliens and signing a peace treaty. Outfitted with wigs, a "Star Trek" outfit, tin foil alien hats and a purple graduation robe, the group of boys presented their aircrafts, put on their skit and even performed lyrics they had written to the tune of "The Final Countdown."
Other Odyssey of the Mind participants dressed as a box of animal crackers and a block of Swiss cheese for their skits.
John Linford, who participated in Saturday's competition with students from his Utah County school, joined the program to work with other kids. Linford said he preferred the long-term problem in the competition.
"It helped me to be able to think outside the box more," he said. "It's been a really great experience."
The other part of the program, the spontaneous competition, consisted of participants having one minute to answer a question. Volunteer Laurel Farrer said a question might be something simple, like "What is cold?" But it is up to the participants to answer with as much ingenuity as possible. They are scored on creativity.
Farrer participated in Odyssey of the Mind when she was in fifth grade and loved it.
"It taught me how to be creative, and not only in artistic ways," Farrer said. "Creativity applies to so many areas of your life. I always felt indebted to the program."
In attendance to celebrate and support Odyssey of the Mind's return to Utah was Sam Micklus, the man who founded the organization in 1978.
The organization came about when Micklus assigned students in his industrial design class at a university in New Jersey a challenge to build a contraption that was not a boat to transport them around a course at a lake. Many students were unable to complete the watercourse, but their creativity impressed Micklus. He began the Odyssey of the Mind shortly thereafter.
Micklus said the organization now includes millions of participants from around the world. After the U.S., the next largest Odyssey of the Mind group is in China.
"It's a big organization," Micklus said. "Much bigger than I ever thought it would be. It's huge, to say the least."
Micklus said he has seen participants reach out to others in a way that might not be possible without the program.
"Now these kids," Micklus said. "If they don't grow up and do something great for humanity, I'll miss my guess."
e-mail: ejames@desnews.com