| Rules | Tournament Paperwork | Scoring |
| Outside Assistance | Tournament Procedures | Coaches Training |
No one has as much impact on a team’s Odyssey of the Mind experience as their coach. Here are some tips for coaches as they ready their team for tournament day.
The rules
Reading and understanding the rules and long term problem is extremely
important for a coach.
There are three sources coaches need:
The program guide has the general rules for the Odyssey of the Mind program. The program guide is available online at the international Odyssey of the Mind website and a copy is provided in the materials that come with membership purchase. Coaches and teams also need to read, re-read, and read again the long term problem statement and have a thorough understanding of it. Finally, the problem clarifications need to be checked throughout the season. The problem clarifications are in response to team clarification requests and take precedence over the problem statement. General problem clarifications are posted on the international Odyssey of the Mind website.
Outside Assistance
Team members are entirely responsible for long term solution design, implementation,
and presentation. Outside assistance includes suggesting an idea to a team
for use in their solution,
steering a team to a solution choice, or assisting with making props or costumes.
Helping with make-up or costumes or fixing a broken
prop on tournament day is also outside assistance.
If a team cannot make something for safety reasons, the team should either figure out a different way to make it or change their solution to something they can make safely. Allowing a team to do something unsafe is obviously much worse than outside assistance, but doing it for the team is nevertheless OA and should be avoided. Just as teams learn to use materials creatively due to the cost limit and teams learn to use time carefully due to the time limit, teams should be learning to take into account their own skill limits when considering problem solutions.
If a team has received outside assistance in one form or another it should be included on the team’s outside assistance form. An outside assistance penalty may be assessed depending on the amount of OA.
A guide to outside assistance from
Virginia provides some excellent advice
to parents on their role, particularly as it applies to outside assistance.
Additional
guidelines for outside assistance written by Carole Micklus are
available from the Virginia web site.
back to top
Tournament Paperwork
All teams are required to bring three copies of
their completed style form, a materials value form, and an outside assitance
form. Additional paperwork may be required in some long term problems.
These forms and directions on filling them out are in the program guide.
Careful consideration should be given to the style form, particularly the
style items.
Most long term problems specify one or two required required style items.
Teams choose two or three of the five items to be judged for style.
Items used for style must not duplicate items already scored for long term.
Tournament Day Procedures
These links will take you to articles from the fall newsletter at
the international Odyssey of the Mind web site.
General Long-Term Problem Procedures
Problem 1
Problem 2
Problem 3
Problem 4
Problem 5
Spontaneous Problem Procedures
back to top
Scoring
No matter how a team scores or places, it is a major accomplishment for a team
to prepare a solution to a challenging problem and present it
at an Odyssey of the Mind tournament. Teams may be scored in different ways for
a number of long term scoring categories, but will frequently be scored for
creativity. The most common misperception about scoring for creativity
is the difference between audience appeal and creativity. A familiar song sung
well by a good singer will certainly appeal to an audience, but it will not score
as well for creativity as a song with words and music written by the team. Here
are some general guidelines for scoring creativity.
| Qualities | 1-10 points | 1-15 points | 1-20 points | 1-25 points |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
1-2 | 1-4 | 1-5 | 1-6 |
| 3-5 | 5-8 | 6-10 | 7-13 |
|
5-8 | 9-12 | 11-15 | 14-18 |
|
9-10 | 13-15 | 16-20 | 19-25 |
Coaches training links
Scheduled Wisconsin coaches trainings
Coaches guide
from Virginia.
Coaches training presentation
from Vermont.
back to top