LI team reaches Odyssey of the Mind world finals

Seven students from Plainview-Old Bethpage Middle School have spent months bringing a “not-so-haunted” forest to life.

The seventh and eighth graders took on the task of creating an interactive skit with special effects as part of the Odyssey of the Mind competition, which held its first round in March. The event finals will take place at Iowa State University from May 28 to May 31. There are 68 teams from throughout the world headed to Iowa, including Plainview-Old Bethpage, the only one from Long Island that qualified.

All teams are given eight minutes to stage and perform a play that must include four special effects, a narrator, at least one character and a surprising ending.

The Plainview-Old Bethpage team was tasked with creating a venue that is “not so haunted,” which is defined in the rules as special effects that “are intended to scare others, but end up with different results.”

“Hundreds of hours goes into eight minutes,” said Paula Engel, who coaches the team along with her colleague Joanna Gentile.

Gentile said the girls had to learn basic engineering concepts, and many used power tools for the first time.

“There was a lot of trial and error … and the girls brought their different talents to the table,” Gentile said.

The club has also helped many of the girls discover new abilities. Briana Garil, 14, said that she spent a good deal of time working on the technical aspects of the team’s project, including engineering the special effects.

“I never knew I was actually good at that,” she said. “And I’ve learned to be a lot more creative.”

For example, she helped design a Rube Goldberg machine out of plastic water bottles, marbles and a vuvuzela horn.