All-Girl Team From Tucson Wins International Contest

TUCSON —An all-girl team from Magee Middle School won first place in the Odyssey of the Mind international contest for creative problem solving in science, technology, engineering, mathematics and the arts.

Magee Middle School is the only Division II school in the world to enter all five "problem categories." Every year the contest presents an original problem in five categories to be solved by teams of students from Division I, II, III and IV schools. The annual categories are vehicle, tech, classics, structure and theatrical performance. Divisions represent the school levels.

Teams from Magee Middle School ranked in the top 14 internationally for each category.

• 14th —Vehicle, Longshot Solution
• 12th — Tech, Net Working
• 6th — Theatrical Performance, Gibberish or Not
• 4th — Classics, The Effective Detective
• 1st — Structure, Balsa Limbo

More than 300 teams form the U.S. and internationally competed as Division II teams.

Seventh graders Sofia Kalesinskaite , Aubrey Phull and Elizabeth Szlemko along with eight graders Adelle Kanies, Lauren Reed and Morgan Riddle made-up the team that won first place, according to an announcement from Magee Middle School.

Below is the structure Balsa Limbo problem the team had to solve from odysseyofthemind.com.

Teams will build balsa wood structures that are created by adjusting its interconnected parts. When the parts are not in the final form for weight testing, they must be able to pass under a limbo bar. Higher score will be awarded for how low the bar is when the structure passes under it. However, the bar is not allowed to be lower than ½”! The limbo bar test and maneuvering the structure for testing will take place during the performance time. Testing of the structure will take place during a performance with a theme about dancing and movement.

The Magee Middle School team created a wood structure that could hold 1,151 pounds. The winning team received a total score of 289.78 out of 350 points possible.

Winners were announced May 30 in a virtual ceremony.

The other participants from Magee Middle School were: Jeronimo Garcia-Ojeda, Isaac Holtmyer, Morgan Riddle, Maximus Silverman, Ryan Zwierlein, Xiomara Cota-Robles, Elena Ivester, Madison Kiburz, Luke Musikul, Armanti Ruiz, Devon Spangler, Christy Ho, Sally Kamper, Alyssa Kanies, Clara McNaughton, Amelia North, Patrick Rohrbacker, Anastasia Henneke, Isabella Ivester, Elliot Knight, Vincenzo Martin, Stephen Mischke and Amelia North.