Getting a Lesson in Creative Chaos : Burbank Students Take Part in Oddball Competition That Tests Inventiveness

When they’re together, the seven members of Luther Burbank Middle School’s “Odyssey of the Mind” team act more like the cast of “Monty Python’s Flying Circus” than students. They prefer to be called “Sven” or “Shaft” instead of their real names, and they incessantly knock one-liners and non sequiturs around.

Which is, perhaps, what you’d expect from the state champion middle school team in one of the most unusual scholastic competitions around.

The Odyssey of the Mind pits youthful inventors, performers and your basic brainiacs in contests that stress creativity, teamwork and problem solving.

On Wednesday, the Burbank team will fly to Iowa to compete against schools from 48 other states and 30 countries in the Odyssey of the Mind world finals.

“Doing this has vastly expanded my interest in physics and engineering, those sorts of trivial things,” said team member Christopher Allison, 14, who got hooked on the Odyssey’s oddball mix of science and performance art in the sixth grade.

But Christopher and his teammates--Nari Ansari, Pete Chesney, Mike Garrels, Stephen Saito, Orlando Arguello and Justin Umpierre--suddenly turn serious when they start talking about the upcoming finals, to be held Thursday through Saturday at Iowa State University.

“Sure we want to win, but as long as we don’t come in last I’m happy,” said Nari, 14. “We already beat hundreds of other teams just to get where we are.”

Justin added: “We’re confident. We have a good chance.”

Unlike the standard, stuffy scholastic showdowns such as the Academic Decathlon, the Odyssey of the Mind is a creative affair that emphasizes students’ ingenuity over their memorization skills. In the competition, teams select one of five open-ended problems and devise a solution without any help--even from their coaches.

The problems vary widely, from dramatic performances to an engineering exercise in which the teams build a balsa wood structure capable of supporting 900 pounds.

The Luther Burbank students beat more than 200 other California middle school teams earlier this year to win a trip to the world finals. In their competition, called “Amusin’ Cruisin’,” they were assigned to build a makeshift amusement park from scratch and drive a homemade car through it, all the while performing a skit in full costume.

To score well, the team had to adhere to the competition’s strict seven-page rule book, which required the car to be electric and driven through the course by a team member. Along the way, the car was required to set off several gizmos, including a homemade electric light and a loud noisemaker.

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Toughest of all, the budget for all construction materials had to be less than $100. Budget sheets for each project were turned in to contest judges. Going over budget or fudging costs can lead to a disqualification.

For their winning presentation, the Burbank students built a battery-powered car out of scrap metal, a school chair and a motor donated by a parent. They then decorated it to look like a large dog, which later morphs into a mouse. In the skit, a young boy played by Pete and a genie played by Justin send the car though a huge game of Monopoly until it is finally ensnared in a mousetrap.

At the state finals, the students also won the coveted “Ranatra Fusca,” a separate award recognizing creativity, said Luther Burbank Principal Donna Coffey. For the world finals, the team will re-create their show.

Since October, the team has spent countless hours after school and on weekends working out solutions to the technical aspects of their presentation and building elaborate props out of cardboard.

Though always irreverent, the students have a solid work ethic that helped push them over the top in the state finals, said Christopher’s mother, Maria Allison, a volunteer Odyssey coach for the past three years.

“They won’t tell you how close they are because it’s not cool,” she said. “But when they get to the competition, they really pull together as a team. That’s very important, because the judges are looking at teamwork as well as creativity.”

The Odyssey of the Mind competition was created in 1978 by C. Samuel Micklus, a college professor in New Jersey who sought an alternative to traditional academic contests. It has been sponsored since its early years by IBM, and several other corporations now offer scholarships to outstanding participants. More than 7,500 schools worldwide, including 1,400 in California, participate, said Steve Shearer, Odyssey of the Mind state director.

The program receives no public funding from the Burbank school district, so the students raised the $6,000 needed to get themselves and their cumbersome props to Iowa.

Coffey, who introduced the program at Luther Burbank five years ago, said Odyssey of the Mind’s somewhat outlandish style never fazed parents or students, and interest in it continues to grow.

Most of the kids on the team are also involved in other, more traditional academic competitions. But all say they plan to stick with the Odyssey once they enroll at Burroughs High School next year.

“This is actually easier and more fun than Academic Decathlon,” said Stephen, 14. “There’s a different problem every year, so it’s a challenge.”